Go Without Transfer

Go Without Transfer / Text: Seewon hyun.

AVP Lab is collaborating with Waley Art in Taipei to present the exhibition Go Without Transfer. From August 31 to October 27 seven Korean artists will show the works related to cities.

As a meeting point for the city and the individual, history continues to provide artists with a subject they must untangle. Making a city today is different from plans to repair ruins. Under a system of collective control in the modern and contemporary history of the Republic of Korea, which remains both a divided state and a military state, several cities are locations in which a collective agenda lies scattered in a continuing political situation. At this point, the city is itself a subject and a setting in which memories of war and division collide alongside personal and collective narratives. Cities both remain administrative districts and exist alongside us as concrete places.

Today’s city is a blast furnace into which numerous things are poured all at once. Some parts of the city have aged and eroded because advancement and progress stopped after the city was planned. Furthermore, the respective locations of a city’s periphery and center continue to shift with the flow of capital. Depending on which perspective we adopt—urban and nonurban, centre and periphery, real estate policy, personal narratives, or psychology—“city” can refer to different things. Park Hae-cheon, author of Concrete Utopia and Apartment Game, had this to say about the Seoul of the 2010s: “Certainly Seoul simmered in certain areas that were heated up, but in the background, the city was rapidly aging and cooling down. The dual aspects created by this extreme temperature gap are definitely connected with Seoul’s unique phenomenon of aging.” Today’s artists also find themselves in a city experiencing the dual circumstances of “heating and cooling.” Artists create various perspectives for viewing the city through mediums both tangible and intangible.

In the mid- to late 2000s, the city emerged as a major subject for painters. What was the reason behind this? One major factor is that the scenery of the city was changing before our very eyes through urban redevelopment. But the city today faces issues distinct from recording or recreating changes apparent to the eye. Discourse on and technology of cities are virtualized depending on how far we are willing to extend what we call a city, as well as our very frame of perception regarding them. This is why the word “city” demands a new definition. In other words, the city today is not on the ground, but in the foreground. It is accompanied by the various names of the online world (metaverse, virtual reality, augmented reality) while provoking a sense of something foreign and evoking new sensations that are akin to nausea.

This exhibition sought to explore aspects of how Korean artists today pay attention to the concept of the city. It examined cities as they appear in the foreground of the online and offline worlds, methodologies of building narratives, and the performative aspect of personally walking into cities. We are now in the 2024 in which it is difficult to experience breathing in fresh air as one does when walking through an unfamiliar city. At such a time, we need new eyes and a fresh vision for viewing cities.

Artists: Donghee Koo, Ikhyun Gim, Joowon Song, Sangun Ho, Seung-hye Hong, Sindae Kang, Su-beom Kim. Chief curator: AVP (Seewon Hyun), Waley Art (Peng Tsai-Hsun).

Graphic design:  Kyusun Shim / Curator: Yewon Seo, Huang Yi-Hsuan / Exhibition assistant:  Hsu Yu-Si / Special thanks to: Jihyun Shin / Video production: Sindae Kang, aquamarinefilm / Photography: aquamarinefilm / Translation: Eugene Kim / Installation: Tsai Shang-Fu, Hsieh Chi-Hsun / Organized by Audio Visual Pavilion, Waley Art / Supported by Ministry of Culture Sports and Tourism, Korea Arts Management Service, Fund for Korean Art Abroad 2024–25, National Culture and Arts Foundation.

*Images above: (2) Joowon Song, I am a Lion, 2019–23. Single-channel video, digital color, sound, 11:44 minutes. PungJeong.Gak(風情.刻) A Town with a Blue Hill, 2018. Experimental Documentary, stereo HD, color, Sound, 15:28 minutes. Go Without Transfer, Waley Art, 2024. (3) Sangun Ho, Mountain Nam and Weather, 2016–18. Pencil and colored pencil on paper, 354 x 277 mm. Ikhyun Gim, Folding paper to the moon, 2020/2024. Photograph, inkjet print on paper, variable size. Go Without Transfer, Waley Art, 2024. (5) Donghee Koo, Tabula rasa, 2023–24. AI images generated from a list of missing people, map of missing people’s locations, A4 size framed C-prints, adhesive vinyl sheet on the wall. Bisang-Horizon: miniature, 2024. PLA 3D printed miniatures, fluorescent color paint, 15 pieces each, approx. 150 x 150 x 150 mm. (6) Seung-Hye Hong, Click Each, 2020. Photoshop, animate, Garage Band, sound by Seung-Hye Hong, 1:20 minutes, loop. / Come This Way, 2024. Adhesive vinyl sheet on wall, dimension variables. / Human Nature, 2024. Adhesive vinyl sheet on wall, dimension variables. / Searchlight, 2023. Animate, Garage Band, sound, sound by Seung-Hye Hong, 2:50 minutes, loop.