ArcHitecture, DISPATCHES Art, MuSic, ArcHitecture, FilM, SHOPPiNg, NeWS AND tHiNgS tO MAKe AND DO… Art, MuSic, ArcHitecture, FilM, SHOPPiNg, NeWS AND tHiNgS tO MAKe AND DO…
theatres of the absurd:
Korean Performance art
Nam June Paik is probably the best-known
Korean artist in the West, his video and
television works, along with those of
Bruce Nauman, laying the conceptual
s
foundations for ensuing generations’
t
o
h
approach to the medium. Although Paik
s
n moved to New York in 1964, where he
e
e
r became associated with the Fluxus
c
s
group, there is a concurrent lineage
,
3
of Korean performance art with which he
f
o

is also identified. Performance Art of
n
o
i h
Korea 1967–2007 features around 100
t c
i i
d r
pieces by 30 artists, including Paik,
e u
Z
, /
arranged chronologically to chart the
D n
v i
D l
development of live work from the
r
o e
t B
happenings of the 1970s to the influence

d , of theatre and current hybridisation of
e r
r e
r n performative genres.
e t
f r
s a
n P
a
r & Forty years of Korean performance art
t
t
9 d
encompasses private actions and public
: n
6 r
1 A
displays, from Sung Neung-Kyung’s absurd

n y
o s
gesture, in 1976, of tautologically
e
d t
e r
counting out the notes and coins in his
m u
l o
fi c
pocket, replacing them and repeating

, .
7 t
the act for, one assumes, some terrible
0 c
0 e length of time, to the contemporary
2 j
Ghosts in
o
, r showmanship of the cult Hwang Sin Hae
d p
the machine:
e
l s Band, which takes its name from a popular
t u
sue de beer
i a
t h Korean actress and fuses rock with
u
t a
e B
theatrical costumes in bonkers-looking
y
Sue de Beer’s installations
m
t o
live gigs and psychedelic videos.
o r
are often fairly elaborate,
N f
Such a straightforward arrangement of
with large-scale projections, makes ample use of all these works along a timeline promises to
lighting effects, furniture elements in her suggestively preserve fluctuations between the absurd,
and props and objects from atmospheric production marked the ultra-personal and the poetic that
her films. She has a way with by cultivated artifice and a thematic show would iron out in
repressed female sexuality, stylised catastrophe. the pursuit of clarity. Sally O’Reilly
the obscenity of celebrity
worship and a certain level the 2007 work (untitled at PeRfORmAnce ARt Of KOReA 1967–2007
of bloodlust within the pop the time of going to print)
uNtil 28 OctOBer, NAtiONAl MuSeuM
horror genre that has earned is about the Bauhaus founders,
OF cONteMPOrArY Art, KOreA
her the tag of ‘neo-gothic’, or rather, deconstructs
WWW.MOcA.gO.Kr
which comes close but fails to

the secret occultism that
take into account her abiding, permeated the language and
infectious sense of humour. practice of those early,
idealistic, zealous prophets
She will show new work at of Modernism. using lush,
Berlin’s Arndt & Partner in romantic textures, palettes
September, and the same new and installation elements,
piece at Sandroni rey in lA in she exposes the esoteric vein
mid-October. the Berlin show that grew inside the very
will also include an older temple of reason and eventually
work that was installed strangled its utopian promise.
(complete with furniture and De Beer’s operatic impulses are
electric dream machines) at increasingly prominent and
1
Marianne Boesky gallery in are to be given their freest
8
9
1
New York earlier this year. rein yet in a work that turns

,
m
the Quickening (2006) was its darkly psychedelic lens
e
o
P
inspired by the Salem witch on the pillars of art history.

d
n
trials of seventeenth-century Shana nys Dambrot
a

l
New england, territory rich i
a
with symbolism, ritual, fear,
n
Sue De Beer r
e
loathing, sex, violence,
4 SePteMBer – 20 OctOBer
g
n
i
misogyny, beautiful landscapes
ArNDt & PArtNer, BerliN
f

and funny hats. De Beer
WWW.ArNDt-PArtNer.De
,
m
i
20 OctOBer – 21 NOveMBer
l
-
u
SANDrONi reY, lOS ANgeleS K

WWW.SANDrONireY.cOM
m
i
K
Artreview 28
Dispatches_SEPT.indd 2 9/8/07 14:55:40
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