November 19–December 31, 2020
Liam Gillick, Goldin+Senneby, Seung-hye Hong, Jin and Park, Hyunseon Kang, Daum Kim, Young-gyu Jang, Jidon Jeong, Hyunjoon Yoo
The Floorplan is delighted to present Your Floorplan, its inaugural exhibition at thefloorplan.net, from November 19 to December 31, 2020. Examining the boom in online exhibitions and viewing rooms during the COVID-19 pandemic, which seem to provide online spaces merely as a substitute for the “real” or as a temporary solution, the exhibition Your Floorplan questions what today can be defined as the framings of art, and how our perception of art can evolve over time.
Starting from the premise that artists, architects, designers, writers and musicians have their own floorplans in mind as the basis of their creations, the exhibition asks the participating art practitioners to transpose their works created in these floorplans onto a monitor, instead of staging them in a physical space, while envisaging the online as a conceptual and abstract space without barriers and limitations. As a response to this proposal, flexible and visionary thinkers and artists Liam Gillick, Goldin+Senneby, Seung-hye Hong, Hyunseon Kang, and Daum Kim, artists/designers Jin and Park, musician Young-gyu Jang, writer Jidon Jeong and architect Hyunjoon Yoo present their artworks, reflecting how they interpret a space, the setting and framings of presenting art, and the floorplans in their minds.
Curated by Hyunjoo Byeon
Exhibition Designed by Dokho Shin
Supported by Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Arts Council Korea, and Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture
The Exhibition Space in the Floorplan’s online platform
Designed by Dokho Shin and programmed by Yeseul Oh, the Floorplan’s Exhibition aims to differentiate itself from other online exhibition spaces, which primarily appear to provide linear, sequential and one-sided experiences to the audience in terms of their display structures. The Floorplan’s Exhibition space aims to construct a spontaneous viewing environment, as a visitor moving freely around a physical gallery space, or a reader selectively picking the part of a book they wish to read.
After the first exhibition, the Floorplan will continuously present the exhibitions curated by the invited curators and art practitioners including Sungwon Kim, curator and professor of Seoul National University of Science & Technology, scheduled for the first half of 2021. As an art platform without a tangible space, the Floorplan’s Exhibition aims to vary established artistic practices.
The Board as an open platform
The Board is an open platform which shares the audience’s translations of contemporary art in the formats of texts or images, and additionally serves as a channel where the audience can participate in the exhibition. Apart from the participating art practitioners, the exhibition Your Floorplan invites the audience to participate by sharing their own “floorplans” on the Board. The contributed works will be published, along with the artworks by the participating art practitioners, and will be presented as part of the exhibition in the format of publication in 2021. By reducing the level of selective character, the Floorplan aims to explore whether a genuine, open platform is possible; if the platform can be democratic; if the audience will become active participants beyond being spectators; and how the gesture of withdrawal within a curatorial project paradoxically reveals the framings, and the presentations of presenting.
The Floorplan as an art book publishing house
While offering an online platform for those whose practices are based in contemporary art to stand in solidarity with diverse voices, the Floorplan also publishes art books as an extension of exploring different formats and media of presenting art. In 2019, it published the Korean version of The Culture of Curating and the Curating of Culture(s), written by Paul O’Neill, and the artists’ book Reflection Study; it also has several books which are due for publication later this year and early next year.
With the opening of Your Floorplan, the online platform adds The Floorplan’s (Irregular) Column, which will present the writings of the invited authors in an e-book format. The new author’s writing will be published in late November.
The Floorplan is an art book publishing house and offers an online platform for those whose practices are based in contemporary art to stand in solidarity with diverse voices. Originally used in architecture and building engineering to mean the layout of a structure from above, the term “floorplan” generally means a map or guide of an exhibition indicating the artworks on display when used in an artistic context. The Floorplan aims to function as a guide to present diversity in contemporary art and to map out a new way to institutionalize contemporary art. By naming itself after a term used to signify physical and tangible space, it reconsiders the meaning of space in contemporary art and seeks possibilities of solidarity beyond the parameters of time and space in the ways in which it plays with the concept of platform, and ultimately attempts to investigate the ways to vary established artistic practices. Furthermore, the Floorplan approaches contemporary art as global content which is not restricted by its origin while also considering the significance of locality.
