Ghosts, Spies, and Grand- mothers Modernities against Modernity Ghosts, Spies, and Grandmothers: Modernities against Modernity Contributors SeMA Biennale Mediacity Seoul 2014 (organized Park Chan-kyong, Wang Hui, Li Ang, Heonik Kwon, by the Seoul Museum of Art, Sep. 2–Nov. 23, 2014) Apichatpong WEERASETHAKUL, Bertolt Brecht, has published two catalogues. Book 1 contains Sean Snyder, HAN Sunhee, Gong Sun Ok, Kim basic information on the exhibition and focuses Keum-hwa, Tajima Masaki, Vladimir Tikhonov, on participating artists and their works. Book 1 Koizumi Yoshiyuki, Cho Han Hae-joang can be purchased at the Seoul Museum of Art. It can also be downloaded in electronic format Publishers at www.mediacityseoul.kr. This is the second Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) book published by SeMA Biennale Mediacity Ghosts, Spies, 61 Deoksugung-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul, Korea 100-813 Seoul 2014. Although Book 2 is related to Book 1, T. +82 2 2124 8800 [email protected] the second book is an independent publication consisting of articles, essays, and poems that Hyunsil Books Publishing greatly expand the theme of the biennale. 2F 56 Poeun-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul, Korea 121-887 Photographs of the exhibition are also printed and Grand- T. +82 2 393 1125 so that the two books are complementary to the exhibition. Published on December 14, 2014 Chief Editor: Park Chan-kyong mothers www.mediacityseoul.kr Advisory Board: Yekyung Kil, Park Sohyun (Japan), sema.seoul.go.kr Park Sohyun (Southeast Asia) Editors: Jeong Hye Kim, Helen Jungyeon Ku, Suki Kim Translators: Young Min Moon, Kim Hyun-kyung, Jaeyong Park, Jon Morris, Fiona He (He Xiao), Modernities Adam Bohnet, Taylor Stoehr English Proofreading: Robert Liles, Jeffrey Stark, Yumi Kang against Book Design: Jung Jin Yeoul Photos: Yang chulmo, Kim Jungwon, Hong cheolki ISBN 978-89-6564-108-7 (03900) Modernity All texts and images/photographs published in this book are subject to the copyright of each copyright holder. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permissions of the authors and the Seoul Museum of Art. © 2014 Seoul Museum of Art. All rights reserved. CONTENTS | Park Chan-kyong Sean Snyder 9 Mediacity Seoul 2014: The Collaboration among 89 Disobedience in Byelorussia Ghosts, Spies, Grandmothers, and Artists : Self-Interrogation on ‘Research-Based Art’ Wang Hui Gong Sun Ok 29 How to Interpret China and Its Modernity 107 A Grandmother Hiding like a Spy : Rethinking The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought and Praying like a Ghost Li Ang Cho Han Hae-joang 43 Ghosts, Female Ghosts, and Being Possessed 119 Darkness before the Dawn : Modern-day Antigones Who Do Not Stand Alone Heonik Kwon 53 The Intimate Strangers Tajima Masaki 135 No Beginning, No End Apichatpong WEERASETHAKUL 59 The Memory of Nabua Koizumi Yoshiyuki : A Note on the Primitive Project 145 In Eventful Times : Concerning Capitalism, Electric Power Bertolt Brecht and Well-intentioned Nationalism 75 In Praise of Doubt Kim Keum-hwa Vladimir Tikhonov 157 Pagyeong [End of Sutra Recitation] 79 Spy: Yet Another ‘Gray Zone Personality’ HAN Sunhee 167 A Commentary on Pagyeong 4 5 Unknown Artist, Immortals' Feast on Yoji Pond (Yo-ji-yeon-do) (Part) 6 7 Mediacity Seoul 2014 : The Collaboration among Ghosts, Spies, Grandmothers, and Artists1 | Park Chan-kyong | The title of the 8th Mediacity Seoul 2014 at the Seoul Museum of Art is “Ghosts, Spies, and Grandmothers.” Running from September 2 to November 23, SeMA’s main exhibition hall presents the work of forty-two artists. The Korean Film Archive is concurrently hosting screenings of forty-two films along with the two art installations by Rho Jae Oon and Ho Sin Tung. The current edition of Mediacity Seoul places a considerable emphasis on the affinities between the exhibition theme and the artworks, unlike the previous editions that had prioritized the new media technology. Of course, it is rather challenging to name a catchall term that would represent the themes of many different individual works. Doing so runs the risk of severely simplifying some works, as well as reading other works in a contrived manner. Organizing theme- based exhibitions does involve such risks, but then again, the risks are not necessarily something to be afraid of. A theme is simply a curator’s proposal. Given the challenge in applying a theme to comprehensively encompass an exhibition, artists, curator, and the audience should all share such a challenge as a presupposition. A theme is neither a criterion to judge a work of art nor a ‘net’ to filter it, but closer to a stain that is found on it. It is more akin to certain patterns that suddenly emerge in the mind of an audience at certain point in time after having experienced the artworks. The words of the exhibition title, “Ghosts, Spies, and Grandmothers,” work in a similar manner. Ghosts make direct appearances in the work of Kim Soo-nam, 1 The images of and the text about the artworks mentioned in this essay can be found in the first volume of the exhibition catalogue, SeMA BiennaleMediacity Seoul 2014 volume 1, as well as on www.mediacityseoul.kr 9 the photographs of Naito Masatoshi, and in the videos of Kim In-whoe. In the imagined theater of Ho Sin Tung, there are neither actors nor an audience, but only peculiar movements of the audience seats. In the apocalyptic images of Basim Magdy, the ‘ghosts’ remain in the background or constitute the mood of the work. Regarding the exhibition from a distance, most of the exhibited works may g 2 n appear to maintain certain kinds of relationships with gwisin, or ghosts, in some o y k - aspects. This is even more the case if we consider ghosts in a wider sense of their n a h implications, such as the return of tragic history. Jesse Jones and Tamura Yuichiro C k r a associate ghosts with the return of historical ideologies and peculiar events or P | their contemporaneous reconstructions. While this exhibition presents ghosts in terms of the culture of the traditional religions in Asia, it also invites its reading s t s i in terms of the memories of repetitive return of overwhelming pains and failures. t r A The exhibition conjures up the failures of utopian aspirations and the project of d n a , modernity of the twentieth century, and the artists interpret such failures in terms s r e h of ambiguous values. t o m d n a r In the work of Jesse Jones and Lina Selander, socialism is remembered not only G , s e through the forlorn play of The Internationale or the emphasis on the calamity i Jesse Jones, The Spectre and the Sphere, 2008 p S , of Chernobyl, but also must be contrasted in relation to the current state of s t s o affairs in which radical attempts for new social communities are contained and h G g revolutionary resistance has all but been lost. This resonates in Sean Snyder’s n o work Exhibition. Re-editing the pedagogical film of a contemporary Mexican art m a n o exhibition held in a Ukrainian village, Snyder empties out the excessive message of i t a r the political fervor of Soviet propaganda, effectively nullifying it as a void gesture. o b a l l However, the direct merging of art and the everyday life of the common people of o C the time offers a jolting contrast to many of today’s contemporary art exhibitions’ e h T : lack of communication, vitality, and value of enlightenment. The ‘ghost-images’ 4 1 0 2 conjured by the artists discreetly reveal not only the failure of the project of l u o modernization but also its constant companion of dreams and passion, as if they e S y t were a pair of hidden cards. i c a i d e M 2 Gwisin is a Korean term for dead persons’ spirits that hover around living people. It is based on a commonly shared belief in the dichotomy of the body and spirit. However, unlike many different forms of spirits in world religions such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, or Hinduism, Gwisin is an independent but isolated entity that is not associated with any organized religion. Gwisin is typically depicted as legless, very light, and dressed in white garment. — translator’s note. Sean Snyder, Exhibition, 2008 10 11 Mediacity Seoul 2014: The Collaboration among Ghosts, Spies, Grandmothers, and Artists | Park Chan-kyong For these For reasons institutional successes of cultural exoticism were met with concerned voices. instance,For it was not without reason that the repeated commercial and within Asia as well, leading to cynical attitudes despite its intended meanings. The critiquefaces of Orientalism today. has affected ‘internalized Orientalism’ cosmology, and folklore—and various discursive issues that contemporary society between age-old anthropological manifestations—such as ritual, mythology, straggling of the development of artistic languages that establish correspondence in terms of formalism, Orientalism, and nationalism. This explains the relative traditional religious culture in Asian contemporary art has manifested mostly While there may be discrepancy throughout the regions, the incorporation of Hinduism, where these religious influences are still deeply felt in the everyday. Asia is the birthplace of Buddhism, Confucianism, shamanism, and Taoism, culture. Ghost, or hat has oscillated between extreme ‘hot’ wars and the Cold War. traditional, or the old, has been destroyed in Asia, especially in East Asia, t if one can accurately assess the degree and intensity of how severely the poet Kim Soo-young, “all tradition is a good thing no matter how filthy it is,” and supplanting of its lessons. However, one can understand the words of the not the critique of Orientalism per se, but rather the misunderstanding as retreating into yet another myth called ‘contemporary art.’ Surely, the issue is of tradition—such as upholding, resurrecting, and re-making it—as well Orientalism in Asian cultures is the ensuing cynical stance regarding the use through the lens of Orientalism.