extra/ordinary: video art from asia

Extra/Ordinary:Video_Art_

from_Asia

Exhibition Curator: Kris Imants Ercums

Brochure Design: Tristan Telander

Exhibition Design: Richard Klocke

Editor: Bill Woodard

cont

ents

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The exhibition Extra/Ordinary: Video Art from Asia investigates new ways of transforming familiar experiences and daily routines into moments of expanded meaning, contemplation, and humorous reflection. By repositioning our constructed notions of the “everyday” as cinematic recreations or comical interventions, this exhibition explores the imaginative potential embedded in the ordinary stuff of life.

In one of its original medieval iterations, “ordinary” referred to the unchanging rituals of the Roman Catholic mass known as Ordo Missae—thus its association with daily routine in contemporary usage. However, when the daily rituals of life are repositioned through the eyes of artists, the shallow waters of the banal suddenly deepen into a reservoir of endless possibilities. The artists in Extra/Ordinary share a common interest in the meaning of our ordinary lives, especially within the context of Asia, where an immense reevaluation of historical consciousness and cultural practices is occurring under the guise of “development.” Together, these artists uncover the potential of daily experience and explore the material stuff of the world as mutable and laden with potential. In the process, ordinary moments are uprooted, transformed into wondrous encounters and, through the “poetics of noticing,” restored as artifacts of memory and meaning.

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The everyday has received considerable attention in recent contemporary art, with longstanding political connotations: Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) grounded the everyday as fundamental to the reordering of society; the Situationist International critiqued capitalist society through the everyday; and most recently, contemporary scholars have rooted their discursive practice in the everyday. However, generally speaking, in the last few years the exploration of everydayness in recent art, while connected to the political awareness of twentieth-century avant-garde practice, has begun to implicate itself in new ways. While striving to make daily encounters relevant, artistic engagement with common experiences is a strategy for infusing new meaning into what is typically ignored—“tracing silent contours” that make the prosaic something worth looking at.1

As the sum of our days and the foundation of the life we will come to call our own, everydayness is an essential building block of life, an existential protein if you will.2 Through his writings, the American thinker John Dewey (1859–1952) explored the relationship

1 Nikos Papastergiadis, “ ‘Everything That Surrounds’: Art, Politics and

Theories of the Everyday” in Every Day, 11th Biennale of Sydney (Sydney:

Biennale of Sydney, 1998).

2 Michael Sheringham goes on to observe “…while many things are

commonly identified with the quotidien—eating, phoning, shopping,

objects and gadgets—everydayness is not a property or aggregate of

these things; it inheres rather in the way they are part of manifold lived

experience.” In Everyday Life: Theories and Practices from Surrealism

to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pg. 386.

between art and everyday life, struggling to “recover the continuity between the types of refined and intensified experience, like in a work of art, and the everyday events, doings and sufferings that are universally recognized as the elements of experience.”3 By remaking the mundane stuff of life into moments of significance, artists offer us a way to understand how our daily routines, or the unsuspecting memories of days gone by, or just waiting around for something to “happen” can transform our passive, ordinary lives into an active resistance against boredom. Through the process, we discover that meaning can be found everywhere, in everyone, and everything.

Boredom remains one of the fundamental adversaries of contemporary consumer society, which is assaulted with an ever-widening array of technology: instant messaging, Facebook updates, Twitter, Nintendo Wii, and a plethora of portable gadgetry. Boredom is also a distinct historical phenomenon, related to contrasting phenomenon like “interest” or “excitement,” which some scholars suggest are requisite parts of modern consciousness.4 German sociologist Georg Simmel (1858–1918) saw the modern development of urban life and the advances of technology as the root causes of boredom, arguing that overstimulation

3 In Katya Mandoki, Everyday Aesthetics: Prosaics, the Play of Culture and

Social Identities (Aldershot, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007), pg. 89.

4 Barbara Dalle Pezze and Carlo Salzani, eds. Essays on Boredom

and Modernity (Amsterdam; New York, NY: Rodopi, 2009).05

prevents us from making value distinction and creating a fulfilling life.5 However, there is something in our recent turn to the everyday—the origins of boredom—and its reevaluation that is meant to struggle against this idea and reassert the legitimacy of contemporary life, the ordinariness of existence, and the value of common people. When approached like this, boredom is merely a state of mind, not necessarily something to be avoided or cured, but a condition in life that depends on a choice, an action.

One way in which people are taking creative action is through the widespread application of new, cheaper forms of digital video and online formats like YouTube, an immensely important venue for the art of the everyday. This exhibition took shape using online video clips, emails, and file sharing. Yet despite the thin copies of DVDs transported via global couriers, the use of equipment like flat screens and projectors manufactured from petroleum and rare metals—not to mention the carbon footprint incurred through trans-oceanic shipping—makes one reconsider the wonders of the traditional object-based exhibition. Martha Rosler, an innovator in video art, reminds that “video itself is not ‘innocent.’ It too is a form of cultural commodity that often stands for a celebration of the self and its powers of invention.”6 The timeliness of video is part of

5 Ralph M. Leck, Georg Simmel and Avant-Garde Sociology:

The Birth of Modernity, 1880–1920 (Amherst, N.Y.: Humanity Books, 2000).

6 Marth Rosler, Decoys and Disruptions: Selected Writings, 1975–2001.

(Cambridge, MS: MIT Press, 2004), pg. 367.

the backbone of Extra/Ordinary, which explores ways of transmuting the ordinary into something extraordinary. It is from this kernel found in the simple life that the artwork in this exhibition began to emerge, a slowly attenuated static shape dancing across a pixilated screen. The use of moving images in this exhibition to capture the passing of moments now long gone, or to restore a lost memory, or to remake life through cinematic effect, further reflects the fleeting qualities that make the everyday so extraordinary.

_______Kris_Imants_Ercums/ _________________Curator_of_Asian_Art

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After spending immense sums to construct signature

venues like the “Bird’s Nest” stadium and the “Water

Cube” natatorium, the XXIX Summer Olympiad opened

in Beijing with a massive spectacle on August 8, 2008.

That same day, three artists—Chen Shaoxiong from China,

Gimhongsok from South Korea and Tsuyoshi Okazawa

from Japan—with considerably less ostentation, held the

opening ceremony for the Xijing Olympic Competitions.

Situated in the art district of Caochangdi on the outskirts

of Beijing, Xijing was conceived as an imaginary “western

capital” meant to compliment three other directional

capitals of East Asia—Beijing “the northern capital,”

Nanjing “the southern capital,” and Tokyo “the eastern

Good_Sports_________________Xijing_Men’s_Collective_____________________

capital.” For the opening ceremony, the emblematic

Olympic torch ceremony is staged as a “smoking relay.”

Passing the sacred flame from cigarette tip to cigarette

tip in a consecutive relay, the final embers are tossed into

a waiting barbeque grill to emblazon the inaugural flame

of the twenty-day competition. In Xijing, signature Olympic

competitions are reconstituted from moments of common

experience: the steel blades in fencing are transformed

into soft, scratching sticks; a leg of the triathlon involves

releasing fish purchased at a local market into a Beijing

canal; watermelons are substituted for soccer balls; and,

in perhaps the most meaningful reversal, the marathon

becomes an endurance sleep-off. The performance of

an alternate vision of the geopolitical athletic spectacle

of the Olympics within the realm of an intimately

collectivized artistic body not only resituates the “play”

of competitive sports away from the realm of nationalized

competition to a more personal dimension, it also avows

the fundamental element of amusement seemingly

absent in professional sports.

Courtesy of Boers-Li Gallery and the artists

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The “forests of gestures” was for Certaeu an unfixable,

metamorphosis of space created by individuals in urban

environments.7 Through his “action videos” Tsui Kuang-Yu

creates his own forest of gestures that trace, transform,

and reposition the way movement in urban space is

used to create meaning in our everyday life. The Invisible

Cities series reveals the oftentimes hidden pedestrian

perspective of cities through interruptions of comical—

even slightly absurdist—extremes that ultimately manage

to soften, or even dismiss the brutality of cities. In Sealevel

Leaker the seemingly innocuous movement of walking

becomes an active determinant. Spewing water in all

directions, Tsui not only manages to augment his bodily

A_Forest_of_Gestures___Tsui_Kuang-Yu____________________________________

7 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), pg.102.

presence, he also leaves a fleeting trace of his walk,

mapping the unencumbered individual onto the rigid

grid of the city. Pedestrian action becomes something

transgressive that arouses reactions of smiling amusement,

mild annoyance, and slight surprise. Liverpool Top 9!! (not

the Top 10, mind you) has the veneer of a well-executed

mockumentary in the vein of This is Spinal Tap. Yet, this

imaginative, satirical investigation into the idiosyncratic

aspects of urban design in Liverpool excavates the

way that city dwellers across the globe reassign the

geography of urban space to usages more fitted to the

realities of everyday engagement. As Michel de Certaeu

observes, “the moving about that the city multiplies and

concentrates makes the city itself an immense social

experience of lacking a place—an experience that is,

to be sure broken up into countless tiny deportations

(displacements and walks)...”8 Thus, when Tsui reimagines

how crossing the street can become an act of community

involvement, or the electronic bleeps of a pedestrian

signal can inspire a celebratory dance, or even when

decorative rocks become a moment for a relaxing foot

massages a la the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Park in Taipei,

he pulls at the urban fabric of the city and shows how we

slowly reweave meaning in our daily actions.

8 ibid, pg. 103.

Courtesy of Eslite Gallery, Taipei and the artist

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Izumi uses a combination of his body, technology, and

space to playfully create videos that strive to transmute

the banal into a superlative encounter, much like

alchemists of old sought to transmute base metals into

noble elements like gold. As the “everyday alchemist,”

Izumi takes an unconventional approach to his magical

reordering of the quotidian. Using mundane objects, he

concocts performances that distort the body, expand the

perceptions, and rediscover the joys of good, cheap fun.

Izumi enjoys setting up game-like moments of distraction.

In Door (2006) he tries to insert a key drawn on his finger

into a lock, and in 19 Days 19 Works (2006) he spends

just under three weeks in an endurance test of the

everyday_alchemy________izumi_taro__________________________________________

imagination. In his most recent work, Izumi casts himself

as the protagonist who inadvertently falls victim to the most

unlikely, somewhat cartoonish incidents. In Lime at the

Bottom of the Lake (2008) a black “hand” materializes on

high, seemingly from a surveillance camera. The ominous

appendage slaps a monitor and pulverizes Izumi flat as

a pancake. In Finland (2008) we find the artist strolling

along, minding his own business when, suddenly, he swims

through a pitcher of water propped just in front of the TV.

His body contorts and twists in the liquid atmosphere like

a genie made of taffy. And then magically, he walks out

the other side. Izumi observes, “Like light and shadow, it is

well known that images are pliable. But because my body

is not flexible I need a device to enter into the picture.”9 His

use of cheap, daily objects—a water pitcher or tube TVs

for example—and his low-tech, video-guerrilla approach

to art glows with a kind of cool-otaku-hipster-proletarianism,

a pulse of everyday experimental fun in the de-centered

art scene of Tokyo. Like the prophetic alchemy of old,

which declared the properties of certain metals and

medicines as indispensible for weathering the end times,

Izumi’s brand of everyday alchemy is a preventative

against the drudgery and madness of our own making.

9 from Gabriel Ritter, Tokyo Nonsense, 2008.

Courtesy of hiromiyoshii

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Since antiquity, Afghanistan has been at the nexus of

world events. Within recent times, the everyday context

for the people of this mountainous, land-locked region

of Central Asia has been defined by geopolitical violence.

During the nineteenth century, the “Great Game” between

Russia and Great Britain was played out in three horrific

Anglo-Afghan Wars that concluded in 1919 with the

founding of the Kingdom of Afghanistan. In the 1970s,

with the “cold war” Soviet Invasion (1979–1989) and

ensuing civil war, Afghanistan was once again a pawn in

global politics. Taking advantage of a nation destabilized

by nearly two decades of civil conflict, the Taliban

seized control in 1996. And, following the September 11,

white_noise__________________lida_abdul__________________________________________

2001, World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, the

beleaguered Afghani people were in the crossfire of an

escalating “war on terror.” This year alone, an estimated

1,500 Afghani civilians have died in the conflict and the

vast majority of the country lies in ruins.

A product of this upheaval, artist Lida Abdul left

Afghanistan as a child refugee. She has spent her life

trying to comprehend “the disaster that has ravaged

my country for nearly two decades.” When she was

finally able to return in 2005, she began her own curative

engagement with Afghanistan by enacting a series of

ritualized performances in the devastated architectural

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spaces that dominate the environs of Kabul. A ruined

presidential complex, with remnants of columns like an

ancient Greek temple, is the wrecked site of White House

(2005). In a meditative reordering of chaos, Abdul slowly,

with method and intent, brushes white paint on each

wall, each inconsequential fragment of rubble. As a

cathartic act, Abdul sublimates the manifestations of war

and reclaims the ruined space as both a mnemonic site

of the past and a hopeful monument for a future as yet

unrealized. She is never far from the subject of her work,

as she observes:

There is always the fear that the work of the

dissident artist, or one too close to an unfolding

“politics” compromises its aesthetic intentions; the

fear that forms might become subordinate to

content. As well-intentioned as this critique might

appear to be, one has to ask: Whose politics? In

my work, I try to juxtapose the space of politics with

the space of reverie, almost absurdity, the space

of shelter with that of the desert; in all of this I try to

perform the “blank spaces” that are formed when

everything is taken away from people.10

Near the end of the video, a young man appears in

this “blank space.” Abdul camouflages him in white. He

both blends into the wreckage and is restored. The video

concludes with a herd of goats climbing through Abdul’s

silent monument.

10 http://www.lidaabdul.com/statement.htm

Museum purchase: Peter T. Bohan Art Acquisition Fund, 2006.0032

For Koreans, the twentieth century will always be

remembered as a time of national turmoil, marked by

the end of the long-lived Joseon dynasty (1392–1910),

the nation’s annexation as a colony by the Empire of

Japan (1910–1945), and the division of the country into

two nation-states by a violent civil war (1950–1953). The

subterfuge of this history runs deep in the stories that Jung

restages in Handmade Memories. For this series, Jung

collected six anonymous memories from elderly Koreans

that he approached and interviewed in parks around

Seoul. Each telling began with the same question: “What

was the most memorable event in your life?” As each

memory unfolds, juxtaposed on the adjacent screen

behind_the_curtain______jung_yeondoo____________________________________

a crew wearing orange

jumpsuits—a seemingly divine

corporate entity—reconstructs

the setting in a soundstage:

a mountain hut in Legends

and Poverty; a flower-filled

memorial in TV Star; a resort

locale in Jeju Island Camel;

a traditional hanok (courtyard

house) in 6x6 Manor; a

golden path in Barley Field;

and a railroad track in On

the Dividing Line between

Body and Soul. Through his

own brand of cinematic

magic Jung revives the

past, repairing the disparate

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shards of remembrance into an imagined singularity that

is animated again for a final fleeting moment before our

eyes. Through much of his work Jung explores memory as

it exists on the permeable boundary between imagination

and the oblivion of dreams. Handmade Memories

builds on the 85-minute film Documentary Nostalgia

(2007) in which Jung recreates key moments from his

own life in one continuous take. However, mythology

often warns us against looking back—think of Lot’s wife

turned to salt. And great writers like Marcel Proust recall

how disappointing memory can be, as it never truly

restores the past. Scientists like Edmund Bolles and Daniel

Schacter, who work on memory, also call into question

the pure form of remembrance we often times idealize.11

Rather, current research suggests that we only recall

ourselves in a fragmented, discontinuous ways. Our

minds don’t archive memories whole. Instead, memory is

selective and constantly changing. It moves forward and

reacts to the present just as we do. This subjectivity, the

imaginative potential embedded in memory, is at the

core of Handmade Memories, which is far from a Proustian

attempt to grasp at the past, but rather is an elegiac

journey through the workings of the imagination.

11 Edmund Bolles, Remembering and Forgetting: An Inquiry into the Nature of Memory (New York: Walker and Company, 1988); and Daniel L. Schacter, Memory Distortion: How Minds, Brains and Societies Reconstruct the Past (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1995).

























Courtesy of Tina Kim Gallery, New York City,

and Kukje Gallery, Seoul

Lida Abdul was born in Kabul, Afghanistan in

1973. She lived in Germany and India as a refugee

before moving to the United States. In 2000 she received

her MFA from the University of California, Irvine. Her work

crosses formalist boundaries and merges traditions—

Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, pagan, and nomadic—that

collectively have influenced Afghan art and culture.

Her performative videos explore the conditions of life

in contemporary Afghanistan. In 2006 she was named

a Prince Claus Award laureate. Her recent exhibitions

include Afghanistan Pavilion, Venice Biennale (2005),

Thermocline of Art—New Asian Waves, Karlsruhe,

Germany (2007), and the mid-career retrospective

Lida Abdul at Centre A, Vancouver (2008). For the past

few years, Abdul has been working in different parts

of Afghanistan on projects exploring the relationship

between architecture and identity. For more, check

out her website http://www.lidaabdul.com

_____the_artists_________

Chen Shaoxiong 陈劭雄 was born in

Shantou, Guangdong province, China, in 1965. He

graduated from the Print Department at the Guangzhou

Fine Art Academy in 1984. In 1990, together with Lin

Yilin and Liang Juhui, he formed the “urban guerilla”

collective known as Big Tail Elephant. A provocateur

of the Chinese art world, Chen employs video and

installation to investigate the shifting societal landscape

of contemporary China. His international exhibitions

include: Venice Biennale (2003), Between Past and

Future: New Photography and Video from China (2004),

the Hong Kong and Shenzhen Bi-city Biennale (2008)

and, most recently, Orient Without Borders, Espace Louis

Vuitton, Paris (2008). For more information check out his

website http://www.chenshaoxiong.com

Gimhongsok 김홍석 was born in 1964

in Seoul, Korea, where he continues to teach at

Sangmyung University. He received his BFA in 1987

from Seoul National University and went onto study

at Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Braunschweig,

and at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1996. Using video

and installation, Gimhongsok’s art blurs perceptions of

belief and subjectivity. He has exhibited internationally

at the 10th Istanbul Biennial (2007), 6th Gwangju Biennale

(2006), and at the Korean Pavilion, Venice Biennale (2005)

with his most recent group exhibition Your Bright Future:

12 Contemporary Artists from Korea, LACMA and Houston

MFA (2009).

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Izumi Taro 泉太郎 was born in Nara, Japan,

in 1976. He received his BFA in painting in 2000 and

his MFA in 2002, both from Tama Art University. Using a

combination of technology and performance to make

short videos and installations, Izumi creates an everyday

aesthetic through his work. Some of his recent exhibitions

include After the Reality, Deitch Projects, New York (2006),

Out of the Ordinary: New Video from Japan, LA MoCA

(2007), Waiting for Video: Works from 1960 to Today,

National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (2009), and

a solo show, Magicians Bread, Solar Eclipse, hiromiyoshii,

Tokyo (2008).

Jung Yeondoo 정연두 was born in Jinju,

Korea, in 1969. In 1994 he graduated with a BFA from

Seoul National University. He then earned a diploma

in sculpture from the London Institute in 1995 and an MFA

from University of London in 1997. In 2006 he participated

in the International Studio and Curatorial Program Artist

Residency, New York. In 2007 he was named “Artist of

the Year” by the National Museum of Contemporary Art,

Seoul, at which he time he produced the epic 85-minute

autobiographical film Documentary Nostalgia (2007).

In 2008 the Korean Ministry of Culture named him

“Today’s Young Artist.” His films and photography

have been featured in scores of exhibitions around

the world. For more information check out his website

http://yeondoojung.com

Ozawa Tsuyoshi 小沢剛 was born in

Tokyo, Japan, in 1965. After graduating from Tokyo

National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1989, he

completed his postgraduate studies in mural painting

at the same university in 1991. Basing his work on

dialogue, interaction, and communication rather than an

isolated studio practice, Ozawa draws on the dynamics

of everyday life and human interactions in his art. Large-

scale projects have included the Museum of Soy Sauce

Art (1999–2000), a humorous take on Japanese art history.

Ozawa’s numerous international exhibitions include the

solo show Answer With Yes and No! Mori Art Museum

(2004), Asia Pacific Triennial Brisbane, Australia (2006),

and Another Landscape, Mori Art Museum (2008).

Tsui Kuang-Yu 崔廣宇 was born in Taipei,

Taiwan, in 1974. He graduated from the Taipei National

University of the Arts in 1997. His action videos use

elements of humor to explore the meaning of urban

space. After completing residences at Gasworks Studio,

London (2004), and Rijksakademie van beeldende

kunsten Stichting Trustfonds, Amsterdam (2006), Tsui

returned to Taipei. His exhibitions include the Taiwan

Pavilion, Venice Biennale (2005), the solo show You

So Crazy, Chelsea Art Museum, New York (2005), and

the Taipei Biennial (2008). Currently Tsui is preparing

for a trip to the Artic Circle.

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Spencermuseum of ar t

The University of Kansas

www.spencerart.ku.edu