‘Existence on the Seesaw’
Minsoo Kang & Klára Petra Szabó
05.03-26.03.2015
‘Existence on the Seesaw’ by Minsoo Kang and Klára Petra Szabó start the dialogue with their interest in the human body and its imperfection. Kang, a Seoul-based artist and Szabó, a Hungary-based artist come together yet diverge in their approach. Kang explores the social conventions and the guilt and pleasure of failures, thus redefining known notions in connection to him. Szabó’s approach is personal or almost intimate in her subject matter in examining identity in relations to the emotions provoked through social conditions and human existence. In this exhibition, both Kang and Szabó focus on investigating the instability and or non-singularity of human existence through their video and text work.
Minsoo Kang:
01+02 (Treatment II): A woman has injured her arm. This video is a process of self-treatment, where she over-treats herself, showing her determination.
01+12(Woman), 01+13(Man): The two videos are of a Korean drama reenacted by two non-actors. The woman and the man have recently broken up and are angry at each other, vowing revenge. Both characters are looking directly at the viewer rather than each other. This creates a dialogue with the viewer and the viewer is drawn into their irreconcilable relationship.
02+02: This site-specific text installation depicts the forgotten history of massacre by US military. In the marketplace where Space One is located, are memories of anti-communist ideologies. The text portrays this very excluded history.
Klára Petra Szabó:
I JUST WANT TO SCREAM SO FUCKING LOUD : This work is connected to ‘primal therapy’, a method of psychotherapy in which patients relive traumatic early childhood experiences and express pain through loud crying or screaming. Dr. Arthur Janov pioneered in primal therapy in the late 1960s. Janov describes it as a "natural therapy" based on his hypothesis that most psychological disturbances are disorders of feelings, which can be traced back to the trauma during the conception and childbirth.
RECTRO: In the arts, vanitas is a type of symbolic work of art. It is a Latin word for "vanity" and loosely translated to the meaninglessness of earthly life and the transient nature of all earthly possessions and pursuits. Paintings done in vanitas style are meant to remind viewers of the transience of life, futility of pleasure, and certainty of death.
Artist Intro:
Minsoo Kang obtained his MFA from Korean National University of Arts and BFA from Hongik University of the college of fine arts in Seoul. He has recently completed his Goyang artist residency run by MMCA. Kang deals with the idea of failure. His work mutates social conventions and reveals the psychology behind it. Some of his recent exhibitions include 2015 BARE_亮[ABOUT KOREA], MMCA Changdong Residency, Seoul, Korea; 2015 Intro, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art(MMCA), Seoul, Korea; 2014 The visual art is adding science, Korea Institute of Science and Technology(KIST), Seoul, Korea; Solo show 2012 Let’s Take Leadership, Gallery 175, Seoul, Korea; 2010 Rotation & Pleasure, Titanik Gallery, Turku, Finland.
Klára Petra Szabó studied in Hungary and Denmark earning her MA at the University of West-Hungary. She recently completed her artist residency at Incheon Art Platform in South Korea. She explores personal identity through her own body (and existence) as a meaningful object in her works in a self-examining manner. Her recent exhibitions include 2016 - Connections, Labor Gallery, Budapest, Hungary; 2015- Pyeongchang Biennale, Elan Vital, South Korea; 2015 - Janos Tornyai Museum, Frostwork, Solo Show, Hodmezovasarhely, Hungary; 2015 -Be My Guest, Looking East, Stadt Gallery, Salzburg, Austria; 2015 - Non Parallel Evolution Of Two Beings Who Have Nothing Whatsoever To Do With Each Other, Tribowl, Incheon, South Korea
