Res Artis: Dr. Kim Hong-Hee

Interview with Clayton Campbell

January 2006

At the Berlin meeting of Res Artis, I met Dr. Kim, Hong-Hee. The Res Artis general meeting focused on the intersection of Asia-Europe, and was an amazing opportunity for persons such as myself and Dr. Kim to meet for the first time and discover over dinner conversation a wealth of common interests. The sharing of ideas in a personable setting is a characteristic of the Res Artis convenings that I have come to value. In our dinner conversation, the topics ranged from artists residencies to the role of Res Artis bridging cultures, to the personal work we do as cultural workers in our own regions and countries. Dr. Kim and I followed this evening with an email interview which follows. It focused on her, and the amazing work she is doing with the Gwangju Biennale.

1. CC: I find it fascinating that you are one of the few women in Korea with a significant position in the cultural sector, as artistic director of one of the most important biennials. As you told me, you started your career as curator somewhat late after marriage, and have had a quite a journey to reach your present interests. As a mentor for younger artists and perhaps young Asian women in particular, what can you say to them about how to approach and achieve an engaged and equitable career in the arts?

KHH: Art is not only aesthetic creation but also a political and cognitive realm of knowledge. Especially, contemporary art focusing on issues of identity, post-colonial consciousness, communication and exchange has created a new political art which demands a change in perspective. On this map of political art, a female curator faces another political dimension of gender, which can be explored to deepen the politics of differences. From a standpoint of an Asian female curator, and through her concerns and studies on how to represent such difference and how to define its significance, a future-oriented vision towards society and art can be suggested. This is one of the meaningful roles of female in the filed of contemporary art.

In the practice of curating and exhibition making, production of discourses and vision should be precedent of practical methodology or technique, and this requires a new attitude. For example, a curator can raise certain issues and problems whereto artist can react and respond thus generating a collaboration process. This process is not different from exchanges between sensibility/intelligence, human/human and human/society through which a new paradigm for art can be brought up. In particular, a female curator with the virtue of tolerance and moral consciousness may be able to suggest a new standard of political art to overcome the contradiction of the conventional system of art world, by applying the strategy of difference. This can be realized by means of context-oriented exhibitions which link communal, geo-political and socio-historical elements to contemporary art, escaping from the format of mainstream exhibitions featuring renowned artists, exhibitions dependent on visual effects and techniques, and alchemical exhibitions based on formalism only. It is the ground provided by biennales and alternative spaces rather than museums and galleries where political norms of art can be experimented and embodied. In such context, the implication of ‘the other’ imbedded in the significance of biennales and alternative space can be viewed through likening to the gender issue as well.

2. CC: In terms of focusing on Asian artists and issues related to contemporary Asian practice, biennale curator Wu Hung states he does not try to define Asian artists by ethnicity, and they live throughout the world not representing countries or cultures. What is the value though, of artists who are perhaps not so connected to their cultural roots, or have left their communities? How does Wu Hung's definition help the biennale focus on Asian issues, especially if being outside the cultural context can lead to an elitist artist class, which is counter to a real reflection on what is contemporary Asian practice?

KHH: Asian-ness is two-sided - cosmopolitan Asia transcending ethnicity and nationality and local Asia rooted in Asia’s traditional thoughts and culture-, and the both aspects represent the contemporary Asia. Discourses on identity of Asia or Asian art start from this ambivalence.

Identity in art, especially for Asian countries like Korea which went through Western influence in the course of formation and development in contemporary art, is often taken as an oppositional or alternative model to differentiate themselves from the West or the First World. Therefore, it changes continuously according to transition of time and influence of foreign power, always challenged by a new identity. In particular, contemporary Asian artists of the post-90’s facing the double demands of globalism/localism in the flow of globalization, understand the debate on globlaism/localism as a conceptual device for post-ideology, multi-value and hybridity rather than as identity crisis to construct a new identity of Asian art.

In fact, a local identity can be defined only by deconstructing the dichotomy of global/local, and a true globalism can be approached only through local tradition and historicity. For example, many of contemporary Asian artists – including artists based in their homelands/abroad and Diaspora situation – are dealing with one’s own cultural tradition with a strategy of duality embracing both past and present. Works of these artists which apply traditional thoughts, motifs and media such as Zen philosophy, Buddha, ceramics, wrapping cloth, etc. manifest how tradition can be transmitted to the contemporary context and thus re-contextualized.

Asian contemporary art is closely related to the West in terms of its formation and evolvement, but carries a different logic in its origin and development process. This different logic can be presented and defined in another space that is both global and local, and large-scale international exhibitions like biennales often provide a model for such space. Contemporary Asian artists reconstruct their identity through de-contextualizing and re-contextualizing their tradition on an international stage such as biennale. The proliferation of new biennales in the 90’s Asia and its implication referring to the shift of center can be understood in this context. Eventually, Asia we are now dealing is not confined in ethnic or regional boundary, but should be taken as a subject for debate and a geo-political metaphor of “counter community.”

3. CC: It is refreshing to see curatorial approaches in the Gwangju Biennale which are not reactive to the notion that Euro-centrism is going to dominate the larger conversation. Many European based artists have left behind binary, colonial paradigms of master/slave, white/other, center/periphery. But these artists and curators are perhaps also unawares of what is really going on in Asia. It is a good moment for them to learn more. Can you say what principles and elements in Asian aesthetics, currently manifesting in contemporary practice, will be entirely different and surprising to European practitioners?

KHH: Does ‘Asian aesthetics’ exist? How cultural peculiarities or aesthetics of contemporary Asia can be defined while Asia is creating a new identity going through prominent changes and developments in politics, economy and culture under the dynamics of world powers that are ceaselessly re-arranged?

Asia is on the move expanding beyond boundaries. It could be said that Asia as a unitary entity does not exist and only traces, fantasies and implication of Asia prevail. Asia escapes its own boundaries and floats through the world as multiple signifiers of merchandise, culture, knowledge, information, marriage, travel, etc. Asian artists construct a new fantasy of Asia from this current phenomenon wherein the quality of flexibility, dynamism, change and mobility itself is assimilated into the nature of Asia. This is not an othered fantasy fabricated from a Western viewpoint but a subversive fantasy, emerging out of the collective as well as subjective unconscious, constituting an essential element to form the aesthetics of contemporary Asia.

On the other hand, Asian artists visualize this fantasy and aesthetics of Asia by means of tradition and communal consciousness. Especially, artists from Northeast Asian countries, which went through similar experiences of modernization and share common cultural foundations – Chinese characters, traditional Asian painting, Zen philosophy, Confucianism, naturalism, etc. – embrace the homogeneity with a collective sensibility, yet propagating open minded nationalism, localism and cultural coexistence to avoid a closed, Asia-centric and past oriented attitude.

The case of Nam June Paik who uplifted ‘Korean-ness’ into the global context is a good example. For Diaspora artists like Nam June Paik, the issue of identity is a common yet most pressing matter. By interpreting the subject of identity through new media and aesthetic language, he stood up as a world renowned artist, Nam June Paik. Ironically, in the background where Korean “Baek Nam-june” is lifted and established as a world famous Nam June Paik lies his strong interest in Asia-ness, pursuit of a new identity based on tradition and root and vision for the union of the East and the West.

Following the artistic will of Name June Paik, many number of new generation artists from Korea and Asia are working in the direction of translating cultural tradition into contemporary context, in search of glocalism that transfers locality to globalism. The Gwangju Biennale 2006 takes ‘Asia’ as its theme intent on remapping the world contemporary art through the global vision of these artists. “The First Chapter_Trace Root : Unfolding Asian Stories” traces the “ROOT” of Asian spirit running through contemporary art culture in the West and the East, while “The Last Chapter_Trace Route : Remapping Global Cities” captures global simultaneities of contemporary art and searches for a communal “ROUTE” for the future. Asian discourse and its aesthetic effect will be explored and visualized through these exhibitions.