The theme of the 2009 Res Artis Conference in Korea was The 21st Century Art Residency and New Institutional Collaborations. Organized by the Gyeonggi Creation Center in Ansan City, the conference brought speakers from around the world to discuss opportunities for alliances across organizations and examine how shared resources can produce fruitful possibilities. Melissa Chiu, director of the Asia Society Museum in New York, presented the concept of museum as laboratory for creation, where artists acted as curators, examining their own work through the context of the institution’s collection. In 2006, Chiu invited U.S.-born Korean artist Michael Joo to the Asia Society to create an installation in which a 3rd-century Gandharan Buddha was surrounded by a halo made up of 48 high-tech surveillance cameras.
The GCC (Gyeonggi Creation Center) is an example of a unique collaborative situation where the center is being developed in conjunction with the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art. The GCC’s studio program includes exhibition space, local collaboration, international exchange and art storage. During the first three-month period, a total of twenty four artists are invited to participate in the residency, sixteen Korean artists and eight foreign artists. Mario Caro, the president of Res Artis said: “For any new art residency program, such as the one at GCC, to be successful it would have to strike a balance at addressing different audiences – the artists, the funders and the community, but most importantly there will be success if you have a visionary leader, who can understand those relationships and be creative in addressing all of them.”
Part of the panel discussions were held at the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art where conference participants had the opportunity to view the group exhibition titled New Political Art in Korea since 1990s: Bad Boys Here and Now, curated by the director of the museum, Kim Hong-Hee . Comprised of some 150 works by 36 artists, the show highlights issues that have risen in Korean politics since the 1990’s such as ecology, construction of megalopolises and new satellite cities, dispersion of population, immigration and labor, to name a few.
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| I Wonseok, We Are Also like Them, mixed media, 2008 , Gyeonggi, Museum of Modern Art, New Political Art in Korea since the 1990’s: Bad Boys Here and Now, |
Dae Young Byun Mickey Buddha, FRP, 183 x 130 x 172 cm, 2007 (head with blue ears) One-eyed Panda keep saying blood-jam is so sweet, FRP, resin, 140 x 110 x |
On the eve of the last day of the conference, American performance artist Dan Kwong, one of the residents at GCC, presented excerpts from his humorous piece It’s Great 2b American. Hailed by critics as a master storyteller, Kwong intertwines multimedia, dynamic physical movement, poetry and music. The conference finished with a big party in the entrance hall of the Gyeonggi Museum Of Modern Art, where everybody had enjoyed themselves while dancing to the tunes of the local DJ.
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| Performance artist Dan Kwong |
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| Conference participants and hosts at the Gyeonggi Moma party |
