December has come around, and the fall semester will be finished quickly just like the quote, “Time flies like an arrow.” This time, all Kingos need to face the final hurdle, the final exams. Kingos who have not prepared for the exams may reprimand themselves for their laziness, but in the opposite approach, the artist Kim Soun-gui concentrates on the positive meaning hidden under laziness. Some Kingos may forget valuable things about their life to go hectically through this semester. So, how about taking a trip to “Lazy Clouds”?
Before the Entrance of “Lazy Clouds”
In a capitalist society, laziness is often referred to negatively and that should be abandoned like insincerity or indolence. The artist, Kim Soun-gui, however, has gained plentiful creative and ethical experience in her life through laziness, not busyness. The laziness of Kim is not to be blinded by the stereotypes of others. Laziness is taking actions and perceiving every moment of a whole lifetime as a decisive instant by her definition. Kim likens being lazy to a freely floating cloud. In this sense, the exhibition Lazy Clouds includes her whole world of art.
Things to Notice in “Lazy Clouds”: A Thousand Faces, Kim’s Artworld
The art world refers to Kim as the artist who has a thousand faces, complex faces that cannot be determined as one. Kim has made various artworks from drawings to video art. Therefore, Interdisciplinary Art, which is the vision of 21st - century art, prevails in this exhibition.
Challenging New Areas Consistently: Kim’s Pioneering Aspect
Kim held the art festival called “Kim Soun-gui Art Festival” in Seoul in 1975, and this was not a simple art exhibition. At this exhibition, in the artwork Today, Kim lets the audience participate in this artwork by writing the words, “yesterday,” “today,” and “tomorrow” on the enormous tessellated paper. The participants of the artwork could internalize Kim’s perspective about time that, yesterday, today and tomorrow are all the same things. At that time, this was a preposterous performance by granting an active position for audiences to participate in artworks, not a passive position of just viewing artworks. Now, on the wall of the exhibition hall, Todayis exhibited again and seeing various writings by diverse audiences makes people feel that lots of them are on the same linear timeline. Especially in the time and space of undergraduate audience where divisions are missing between yesterday, today and tomorrow, it may make audiences feel that today and the last day of this semester have no separation between them. This artwork may bring undergraduates to think in a flash that they should do some hard work to bring this semester to a successful conclusion.
Audiences can look at Kim’s pioneering appearance again from the new artwork, Space Time2019 at Gallery Madang . This artwork includes Mudang which, in Korean, means a shaman who transcends the bounds of human reason and the robot Younghee who recites poetry. Younghee is programmed and follows rules. The artwork involves all other things on that site too. Like the title, “space” and “time”, audiences can experience nature, human and supernatural worlds in their space-time. Specifically, because of the trait that Gallery Madang is outside, the external environment is changing consistently, so audiences can appreciate their “space” and “time” where others cannot experience. Currently, the complete performance of Space Time 2019 including Mudang is unavailable. Nonetheless, try to rest your body on the bench in Gallery Madang and focus on the sound of Mudang and Younghee. It will grant you with enough of an experience to feel the descriptions above.
Video Carrying Art: Granting Situations on Artworks
Kim said that when doing artworks or displaying what she made, there is a moment that there is light, wind, dust and human sound. She also said art can be perfected when a situation, object, and action form a triangular relation. The artwork Situation Plastique shows Kim’s trait well, as the word, “situation”. This shows people making kites and flying them on a beach. It shows the rejection of the myth that art should be done in a calm room on a canvas. Kim’s art is done in an open space in the world. Moreover, Bonjour Paik Nam-june includes the video writing a poem on Saekdong canvas, which is the canvas made of Korean colorful stripes, with Paik Nam-june, who is a great video artist. This video plays on an analog television and Saekdong canvas is like a waiting screen of analog television. This makes a junction between Korean art and video art. The combination of Korean traditions and modern videos gives a profound experience to audiences.
Recommendation to “Lazy Clouds”
Above the artworks that are already explained, there are still a lot of artworks such as, Language Game Color Game, which is like teenagers’ playing. As described before, Kim’s art world is so diverse that it is hard to express all of her world depending on a limited number of artworks. Again, her variety of art has resulted from the laziness, but modern people tend to think of the effort and busy life as a virtue. Based on this thought, Kingos, who have a burden on the final exam at hand, should have a chance to consider whether this burden has resulted from the wrong virtue or not. Like Kim’s mindset, if Kingos focus on the positive side of laziness, they will succeed in the immediate final exams and with their life goals, taking care of the priceless things of their lives forever.