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Movable pedestal
2013
Participating artist (LEE, SUNNING 이선행)
Gwanghwamun Square picture,
installation view at Redbrick gallery, Seoul
When I attended the exhibition of my fellow artist who I worked with for a long time, what struck me most at the exhibition hall were the cool human bodies. At the time when the term, ‘grotesque’ lost its eerie nuance but came part of the design, I did not feel anything like ‘anxiety’ and ‘uneasiness’ felt in the most private space where he ardently appeared but the audience in the exhibition, asif they were enchanted, almost unanimously spoke that they had witnessed the artist’s ‘anxiety’.
Movable pedestal 3-channel video 12min
Just like a number of sculptures representing their contemporary eras, I gathered that his work would be better suited to be erected in a wide square like a monument of the youth of this age. So I suggested the idea to him and we started to film the processes in the square. From the initial phase of the work, we tried to draw a boundary between our individual works and what photos we could use in our own exhibitions and if we shall specify each other’s name if we were to use each other’s work and more.
As I am an artist myself, I tried to de-mark my area from his. However, it was difficult to succinctly define my own area. While the existence of you and I was indubitable, our boundary was not as clearly discernable as our bodies. When we began to film in the square, people looked at my fellow artist’s work without any censorship again.
Movable pedestal 3-channel video 12min
As soon as we arrived at the square for the exhibition, discussing the boundary between our works, we were questioned by the police. At first, they mistook our work for corpses in a vehicle. After we revealed and confirmed our identity, they were still torn on whether to take it as art or as a protest. In the end, they accompanied us from the start to the end of our work.
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Movable pedestal 3-channel video 3min excerpt
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