NY Fashion Week: Wang goes to church, Siriano goes for knits MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2016 38 A Palestinian woman looks at red teddy bears displayed at a gift shop on Valentine’s Day in Gaza City. — AFP ‘Monday Afternoon Fever’ in S Korea’s old-age discos s the mercury outside plunges to 6:00pm opening hours which, Lee says, work minus 10 degrees on an ice-cold well because most “feel too tired at night.” A A century after AMonday afternoon, the dance floor well-stocked medicine cabinet contains inside the Kukilgwan Palace is packed with remedies for a host of possible emergencies, grey-haired Korean couples moving to the including a sudden drop in sugar levels. “If a ‘Dada’, Zurich museum rhythms of high-volume disco. “I come here regular suddenly stops coming, it usually every day of the week, except for Saturday means he or she has died,” said Lee, who recreates lost work and Sunday,” said 81-year-old Jun Il-Taek as feels attending funerals of loyal customers is he danced beneath the giant disco balls part of his job. century after Dadaism was founded in Zurich, a presti- and brightly-coloured string lights decorat- gious museum in the city is hosting an exhibit that aims to ing the venue in central Seoul. Jun was one Turning away the under 60s Arecreate one of the rebellious artistic movement’s great of around 200 men and women on the Many are widows or widowers looking but unfinished projects. Dadaism was born in 1916 at the floor-all engaged in the same, rather static, for some company and mild flirtation, and famous Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich’s old town, where artists pro- knee-bobbing dance routine, with the odd anyone under 60 is turned away as they duced work partly inspired by the devastation of World War I that slow-motion twirl to liven things up. may “annoy other patrons and spoil the sought to challenge preexisting notions of what constituted art. The sedate nature of the dancing is in mood,” Lee said. The dress code is generally One of its founders, Romanian-born Tristan Tzara, tried in 1921 to stark contrast to the decibel level of the conservative, with men in pleated pants release a collection with some 200 contributions from some of music, which slowly envelops the ascend- and blazers and women in dress pants or Dadaism’s main contributors-a project named “Dadaglobe”, ing elevator as it approaches the ninth- knee-length skirts. Some women might risk which ultimately faltered due to financing problems. floor dance club. “Nothing keeps me a shorter hemline, or a bit of glitter, but for Thanks to artistic sleuthing, much of the collection has been A couple dance at a ‘colatec’. — AFP photos reassembled and put on display Zurich’s Kunsthaus museum. healthier than dancing ... I can’t live without the men, a fedora worn at a jaunty angle is Entitled “Dadaglobe Reconstructed”, it includes some 160 works this place,” Jun said, deftly leading his 75- Colatecs rebranded themselves for an income, leisure activity is something of an about as risque as it gets. In what remains a by 40 artists from across the world, including noted figures like year-old female partner into a slow turn. entirely different demographic. “They unknown field for a generation whose very Confucian culture, elderly South Max Ernst, Hans Arp and Sophie Taeubeur. All had sent contri- The army veteran is one of thousands of became a playground for the over 60s ... labor transformed the country from a war- Koreans are expected to behave with mod- butions to Tzara for the project. The exhibit opened this month retired South Koreans hitting the dance and they turned out to be far more loyal ravaged backwater to Asia’s fourth-largest eration and dignity, and Colatecs are and will be on display in Zurich until May 1, before it shifts to the floors at “Colatecs”-special discos for the customers,” said Lee Kwan-Woo, the owner economy. “This generation spent all their frowned on by those who see them as Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York. elderly that are flourishing across the coun- of the Kukilgwan Palace which was estab- lives working, working and working, and unseemly hook-up joints for pensioners. ‘Detective work’ try. South Korea’s rapidly ageing popula- lished in the early 2000s. leisure was considered a privilege of the As a result, patrons like Han Keum-Ok, a Tzara’s Dadaglobe project was conceived as an anthology of tion may be a major headache for policy- “Here, they can exercise to stay healthy, elite,” said Hwang Nam-Hui, a researcher at 75-year-old Kukilgwan regular for the past the movement, which ran through the mid-1920s and used makers, but its members are determined to make new friends and have a little bit of the Korea Institute for Health and Social 10 years, keeps her hobby a secret. “My humor, wit and irony to highlight what some artists described enjoy themselves, dancing the years away excitement,” said the 70-year-old former Affairs. “So many find it hard, and even baf- children and grandchildren think that I just as the social and cultural decay in Europe. Dadaglobe gradual- at clubs where 50-year-olds are turned nightclub singer. South Koreans aged 65 fling, just to relax and enjoy themselves meet my friends over coffee or lunch,” said ly fell into oblivion, aside from passing interest from a few away for being “too young.” plus make up 13 percent of the population, after retirement,” Hwang said. Han, who dances every afternoon away scholars. In 2005, however, Adrian Sudhalter, an art historian that figure is expected to rise to as much as Kukilgwan Palace owner Lee says clubs before returning home to cook dinner. Han and curator at MOMA, noticed a series of numerical markings From teens to OAPs 40 percent by 2060. Currently, half of that like his offer a vital opportunity to “unwind says the routine has kept her healthy and on various pieces while participating in a Dada retrospective at Colatecs first emerged in the late 1990s demographic live on or below the poverty and just have fun.” His venue attracts 800 happy while many of her non-dancing the Beaubourg Museum in Paris. as dance halls for teenagers, where alcohol line. A meagre pension and lack of social visitors on a weekday and up to 1,500 at friends have suffered depression or illness. “When we inspected the art work I started to see these was banned and the only drinks on offer “At my age, you never know how long you numbers at the back of the works and asked myself, ‘what are welfare make retirement a daunting weekends. The entrance fee is cheap at these numbers’,” she told AFP. Her curiosity piqued, Sudhalter were sodas like Coca Cola. But they soon prospect. 1,000 won ($0.80). will live, and I’d like to enjoy the rest of my headed to the archives of the Jacques Doucet library in Paris, fell out of fashion with their young clientele Most of the club’s income comes from life to the full. “But I tell no one I come here which has a significant collection of Dada and surrealist materi- which migrated to gatherings at Internet New-found leisure food and drinks. The physical limitations of because a lot of people think Colatecs are al. There she discovered a list which corresponded to the num- cafes and karaoke clubs. And so the Among those with some disposable its elderly patrons are reflected in the noon- immoral,” she told AFP. — AFP bers and sequences she found on the pieces at the retrospec- tive. Baffled at first, she little by little realized the list was a com- plete inventory of Tzara’s intended Dadaglobe. She would be able to assemble “the pieces of the puzzle”. “It was really artistic detective work,” Sudhalter told AFP. “Because of this list and because of these numbers I realized it would be possible to put (Dadaglobe) back together again.” ‘Biggest regret’ Tzara, who died in 1963, commissioned pieces from the leading lights of Dadaism, many of whom sought to poke fun or mock outright a world thrust into upheaval by World War I. The “Reconstructed” exhibit features work by German painter and sculptor Max Ernst, who fought in WWI and was reportedly traumatized by the experience, producing art that was partly concerned with the subject of mental illness. Also featured are Hans Arp and Sophie Taeubeur, who were married and worked together in Zurich, turning out what were then groundbreaking multi-media projects. Taeubeur, born in Davos, is pictured on Switzerland’s 50- franc note. Sudhalter told AFP that in her research for the proj- ect she consulted with Michel Sanouillet, one of France’s most renowned experts of Dadaism, who spoke with Tzara a few years before his death. “Tzara told (Sanouillet) that Dadaglobe was one of his biggest regrets,” Sudhalter said. — AFP A couple dance at a ‘colatec’ in Seoul. A musician plays keyboards as people dance at a ‘colatec’..