‘Ten thousand Li Back Home’
Monica Nickolai & Yangbin Park
15.10-31.10.2015
‘Ten thousand Li Back Home’ by Yangbin Park and Monica Nickolai creates a spatial dialogue of transit, change and motion within their experiences as wanderers.
Begun in 2012, Yangbin Park’s ‘Ghost Boxes’ attempts to illuminate the notion of transience and mobility in contemporary society. The boxes presented in the work originally came from Park’s journey, traveling from Korea to New York to Chicago to Philadelphia and back to Korea. The shipping boxes wrapped in silver papers with hand-drawn labels evoke a static and meditative ambience. By means of suggesting a contemplative gesture reflected in his transitional history, this work connotes the ephemerality as well as our uncertainty of life.
Monica Nickolai presents a collection of works that seek to disentangle from modern life notions of migration, time and alienation through her mix of language—old and new—with luminescent sculptures created from found industrial objects. Inspired by ‘Ghost Boxes’ and its themes, Nickolai incorporates into her work the poem ‘Kowon Post Station’, written in classical Chinese by Korean poet Kim Kuk-ki in the late Koryo period:
This fleeting century of mortality—already fifty years have passed, Few ferries eased my way on the rough road of life. I have left my country for three years—what have I accomplished? Ten-thousand li back home, and all I have left is this body. The forest birds, fond of this wanderer, twitter kindly; The wildflowers do not speak but laugh and detain me. No matter where I go, the poetry demon besets me and Although he does not drive me to ruin, it is difficult to bear.
Appropriating a line from the poem as a title for the exhibition, the two artists collaborate in transforming Space One and their installations into a meditation on the mutability and transience of our existence.
Artist Intro:
Yangbin Park currently lives and works in Seoul, Korea. After fulfilling his term of mandatory service in the South Korean military, he relocated to the United States to continue his studies at School of the Art Institute of Chicago (BFA) and Tyler School of Art (MFA). Park has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in Korea and abroad. His work is a part of the collection of Contemporary Center for the Arts, Hanoi, Vietnam. Park is also a recipient of numerous awards, including the Merit Exhibition Award at the Janet Turner Print Museum in Chico, United States and the Artist Awards of Excellence at Cyart Space in Seoul, Korea
Monica Nickolai is a writer and multimedia artist who explores language and storytelling. She received her MFAW from School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Some of her recent exhibitions include the Richard Gray Gallery of the John Hancock Tower and Salt Gallery in Gwangju. Nickolai has work in the collection of former Mayor Richard Daley. As a DJAC collective member, she has also been involved in managing Gallery DJAC in Daejeon, Korea.
