After Graybox: From Collecting to Exhibition

Period

April. 15. 2022. ~ July. 17. 2022

Venue

Museum of Contemporary Art Busan, Gallery 2

Artists

Yoon Jeewon, Harun Farocki, SUJANGGO×Choi Haneyl, PCS×Gim Hongsok, Jung Yunsun, Kwon Hayoun, Rho Jaeoon, Vuk Ćosić, Hito Steyerl, Ram Han, Kim Heecheon

Media

Curator

내용

<Exhibition Related Program Results Collection>File Download

 

 

 

 

 

After Graybox: From Collecting to Exhibition exhibition view

 

 

Yoon Jeewon, Untitled(Moving Image Routes), 2016, single-channel video, 18min 6sec, Courtesy of the artist

 

Harun Farocki, Interface, 1995, two-channel video, color, sound, 24min 40sec, MMCA collection

 

SUJANGGO×Choi Haneyl, Stretch, 2019 (2022 reproduction), digital sculpture, four-channel video installation, CC0 (public domain), Commissioned by MoCA Busan

SUJANGGO, SUJANGGO, 2020- , Web platform (www.sujanggo.com), Courtesy of the SUJANGGO and listed artists on SUJANGGO

 

SUJANGGO×Choi Haneyl, Stretch, 2019 (2022 reproduction), 3D print of digital sculpture data, CC0(public domain), Commissioned by MoCA Busan

 

PCS×Gim Hongsok, Good Critique Bad Critique Strange Critique, 2022 (Re-enactment), Performance, two-channel video, 8min 45sec (3 lecturers, 3 printed essays, 2 LED monitors), Technical assistant: Kim Jiwon, Researcher for performance manual: Lee Minjoo (PCS), Re-enactment supported by MoCA Busan, Courtesy of the artist

 

Jung Yunsun, I saw the truth on the road, 2018, performance (recording video), single-channel video, color, sound, 21min 22sec, ed. 1/2., MoCA Busan collection

 

Kwon Hayoun, 489 Years, 2015, VR video installation, 360˚, 3D stereoscopic animation, sound, 11min 18sec, ed. 5/5., MoCA Busan collection

 

Rho Jaeoon, God 4 Saken, 2009, Web Art, random access, ed. 2/3., MoCA Busan collection

 

Vuk Ćosić, ASCII History of Moving Image(Psycho), 1999, Java applet, hard drive, monitor, 34.5×42×7cm, SeMA collection

 

Hito Steyerl, The Tower, 2015, three-channel HD video installation, environment and sound, 6min 54sec, ed. 7/7., MoCA Busan collection

 

Ram Han, Room type 1(Object_04, 05, 06), 2018, digital painting, 300×300cm, 90×90cm(3), SeMA collection

Ram Han, Room type 2(Object_01, 02, 03), 2018, digital painting, 300×300cm, 90×90cm(3), SeMA collection

 

Kim Heecheon, Sleigh Ride Chill, 2016, single-channel video, color, sound, 17min 27sec, MMCA collection

© After Graybox: From Collecting to Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art Busan, 2022 (photograph: STUDIO JEONGBISO)

 

[Exhibition Overview]

 

Today, where the development of new technology media such as blockchain, metaverse, and NFT accelerates the digital world becoming commonplace and predicting the transformation into a new digital world in the more evolved form of web3.0, contemporary art is also rapidly differentiating into various genres and forms across various technologies and media. Such a trend continues to broaden the scope of artworks that contemporary art museums should collect and accept. At the same time, it creates a new exhibition space different from the existing art museums. The 2022 collection exhibition of Museum of Contemporary Art Busan After Graybox: From Collecting to Exhibition highlights the media characteristics of diversifying new media artworks since the exhibition space called "Graybox" in such a process of technology and art affecting each other. On the other hand, it examines the issues discovered today in the series of collecting processes of collecting-preserving-restoring the artworks classified as new media caused by their characteristics and inspect to improve the present for future-oriented direction with the actual collection of the museum.

In the art-historical context, the museum exhibition space after modernism has changed from the “White-cube,” which is considered the traditional gallery space, through “Black-box” to “Graybox (also called “Gray-zone” or “Studio”),” that is a combination of the history of the former two spaces. The change is related to the technological advancement and the expansion of media that was resulted from the advancement. Unlike the White-cube, the space for traditional painting and sculpture, the Black-box is a dark, closed space built to project films and videos. It was created in the process of exhibiting and introducing experimental films in the museum that was forced out by commercial films driven by the logic of huge capital. Graybox is an ongoing gray zone that has not yet been defined, but it is a space where the necessity was brought up with the introduction of performance genres such as dance and play into museum space in the 1990s. Therefore, Graybox refers to a space where White-cube and Black-box overlap but is also regarded as typical of the performance genre. Interestingly, Claire Bishop (1971- ) emphasizes that this change coincides with when network technology and smartphones emerged, which opened up a new way of viewing that immediately interacted with the audience. As such, the historical change process of the exhibition space is closely related to the technical conditions of the time, which expanded the scope of visual art media, like it has extended Black-box by the emergence of technology-time based media formed moving between the boundaries of art and film industry and Graybox by the expansion of the interests to the performance genre that is maximized the characteristics of temporality, which film media contains.

Just as artworks reflect times in any way, the current trend of art museums is developing in a new direction in line with the full-scale expansion of digital technology. It shows in the phenomenon, which the exhibition focusing on the changes of art genre arise in every direction, centering the attribute of digital through recent years, from single- channel/multi-channel video switched to digital formats after the emergence of early video media such as television, video, and movies, and web(net) art emerged in the early days of the digital world, to video (installation) media using latest digital technology and software such as game, VR, AR, MR, and digital painting, digital sculpture, convergence and integration interdisciplinary art that expands by breaking the boundaries between genres including performance. The emergence of digital technology-based new art media changes artwork's fundamental way of existence and suggests a new environment and viewing method beyond the foregone three types of exhibition spaces. Even if it might only exist as a temporary phenomenon, the contemporary museum is figuring out what a new world that visual art will open in the present time of this transitional inflection point, where everything converges into the digital world is, functioning as a place where various artisticexperiments are attempted across the real world and virtual world, materials and non-materials, offline and online. However, these attempts are not that art is subordinated to technology media by limited to spectacular visual effects that technology devices guarantee, but are made in the process of maintaining a critical perspective on the characteristics of the machine-technology-centered world from analog to digital and the structure of human life being reorganized under the influence of the former.

As of January 2022, the MoCA Busan has 269 artwork collections, of which 220 pieces are technology-time-based media work such as new media, single-channel/multi-channel videos, and video installations, accounting for more than 80% of the total collection ratio. Most art museums at home and abroad have the collection classification system under “new media” encompassing overall technology-time-based media, including video, media, and performance. However, in the case of our museum, the collection system is divided into four categories: “New media,” “Single-channel video,” “Multi-channel video,” and “Video installation” according to the work's final form of visualization. “New media” contains general media works that utilize new technology devices and programs such as the Internet and computers, and “single-channel/multi-channel video” and “video installation” refer to video works with the characteristics of “moving images,” and it also includes performance recordings. Nevertheless, this classification system is not accurately applied to all the collection works. It is because some artworks contain more than one category character or do not belong to any of the classifications. There may be various definitions of new media. However, this exhibition will be limited to the visual art realm, which actively utilizes technology-time-based media, according to the major artwork groups that show the characteristics of our museum collection.

The issues that most art museums face in the process of collecting new media artworks are closely linked to the conditions that determine the characteristics of new media, which are “technology” and “time.” It is because “technology” has “variability” that is bound to change constantly over time, and “time” has its characteristics of “non- materiality” that volatilizes every moment without being fixed as a physical object. The characteristics of “variability” in works that directly use physical technology and “non-materiality” in the performance genre that exists only in the temporary moment are more prominent. However, most new media works have both of these characteristics as extrinsic and intrinsic conditions. In particular, the variable and immaterial characteristics of technology-time-based media are intensified in recent digital technology applied artworks, such as digital format video works and the works requiring constant updates and online networks. It is because the physical property of digital has no material substance in that it is an assembly of abstract codes and can be easily moved, reproduced, and transformed. Considering that the collections of institutional art museums have always been in a physically unchanging form, despite that these collections are finite products that can disappear by countless extrinsic and intrinsic factors, the artworks with variable and non-materialistic nature require a shift in perception from the traditional collecting direction by reconsidering what the subject that museums should collect is.

This exhibition consists of the artworks and related research platforms that lead to sense the changes in art media, exhibition space, and the form of viewing those take place in a rapidly changing technical environment, and that request the attempt a new collection method, asking what a suitable collection economic system for characteristics of video, performance, digital, and new media is. The entries evoke the natural characteristics of technology-time-based media, such as variability of new media, the conflict between old and worn technologies of the past and new technology, the emergence of non-materialized works without substance, and one-time performances remaining only in sequences, photos, or video records. At the same time, this media characteristic, which contradicts the way of existing of traditional painting or sculpture that the subject to collect was clearly indicated, leads to practical issues that have already arisen, overlooked, or encountered in the collection process, reflecting the value of reconsideration of the way contemporary new media works are collected. As such, these works, which occupy the exhibition space after the Graybox, cross variability and immateriality and point out that the collection of physical objects may no longer be key to the art museum collection policy. Then, what should the contemporary art museum ultimately collect?

From this question, After Graybox: From Collecting to Exhibition pays attention to the role of the collection exhibition to reset the direction of the collecting based on a preemptive understanding of the characteristics of new media in relation to the current times, environmental, technical, and situational conditions, with the obligatory role of introducing collected works. The museum's regular collection exhibitions are an essential part of the collection process in that they can work on academic, technical, and policy issues found by creating an opportunity to conduct an immediate investigation of the artwork condition through the process of exhibiting the works after collecting. I hope this exhibition, which circulates the museum's collection system leading artworks from collection to exhibition, will serve as the foundation for the next cycle of questioning for new points to be discussed beyond the traditional concept of collecting and finding solutions.