KKHH

Artist: KKHH

Website: www.kkhh.org

Works at: Seoul Art Space_GeumCheon

Stays in: 2012

Genre: Visual Arts

Profile: 

Solo Exhibition
2012 The boat going to the moundains / space99, Seoul
2012 Romantic Moments / placeMAK, Seoul

Group Exhibition
2012 Seoul 2050 II / MIT Wiesner Gallery, USA
2011 Memory of Manan-Ancient Future (Ordinary time) / Seock-su Market, Anyang
2011 Social Museum /SpaceBeam, Incheon
2011 SNAP / AG Gallery, Seoul
2010 nothing but / Community Space Litmus, Ansan
2010 seoul 2050 / unofficial preview, Seoul
2010 Stranger than paradise / Community Space Litmus, Ansan
2010 City Fix Center / SpaceBeam, Incheon
2010 The Premium for your upper value / Shinhan Gallery, Seoul
2009 herstory / Shinhan Gallery, Seoul
2009 ↑↑↑↑↑ / ArtSpace Hut!, Seoul

Works: 

<The boat going to the mountain>_installation view(space99)_2012

 <The boat going to the mountain>_single channel video_10’38“_2012

<Two hands are better than one>_performance_2012

일상의고역_미디어퍼포먼스_가변크기_2012

단편선;낯선증언_시멘트캐스팅_현장설치_2012 

보통의시간_영상설치_가변크기_2012

수상한피크닉_엿듣기(보기)퍼포먼스_현장설치_2011 

K씨보고서_K에대한관찰기록과 안내영상_가변크기_2011

스틸_훔쳐온경계표식물_가변크기_2010 

KKHH (Kang Jiyun + Jang Gunhee)

KKHH (Kang Jiyun + Jang Gunhee) explore and research the city space and interpret the relationship between the life and the site. Their art works involve focusing on everyday lives and dismantling the awareness of the borderline between action and space.

A Critique of KKHH

Hanseung Ryu (Associate Curator, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea)

 

Recently many artists have been creating works in collaboration with ordinary people. The subject matter used usually consists of those ordinary people in their everyday lives. This kind of artistic activity, in which other people’s participation is necessary, is being highly actively developed in connection with local outreach programs of artist residencies and alternative spaces. In general, this artistic activity pays greater attention to the creative process, everyday spaces and ordinary objects, rather than to a finished result, gallery spaces or aesthetic objects; reconsiders the artist’s absolute status and the institution of art along with it, and attempts to reveal the way ordinary people think and the characteristics of local areas, based on interaction with them.

 

However, a few problems are being pointed out in this artistic activity. The chief issue among them is derived from the participation of people, which is a characteristic of this kind of art. If an artist creates a certain set of rules or principles, then people are required to act according to them, i.e., the activities assume the form of an artist creating the rules to the game and people following them. Although some would participate with much enthusiasm, others would do so reluctantly. The latter may have chanced upon the event at that.

 

An early work by KKHH <Unne Moim: Green City Version> took place at the pontoon bridge of Incheon. These artists photographed artificial green surfaces in the area including artificial turf and green urethane paint, and created a picture book in the form of free tabloid-sized newspapers and distributed them to local residents. Subsequently the residents photographed green objects or landscapes of forms similar to this picture book and uploaded their images onto a blog. In addition, in <Stranger than Paradises> (2010), which took place in Wongok-dong of Ansan, KKHH carried out interviews in which they asked local residents how they were. The assistance of people was absolutely necessary for both of these two pieces. However, the artists claim they acquired questions and a sense of shame while producing this work. They asked whether it was not solely for their work that they met with the public. They questioned whether horizontal or mutual communication was achieved with the local residents.

 

Afterwards, KKHH sought out a new method. If two-way communication was impossible, the artists decided to view their subjects from their own position rather than to try to forcibly induce the latter’s participation. KKHH attempted “stealing things” in <Steal> (2010). At night they stole boundary markers erected by residents of Wongok-dong in front of their homes (structures of tires, flower pots and water containers, etc. placed to reserve parking space). It is said that when one visited the locations the following day, the residents had set up new place markers. Subsequently these artists elected to “spy” in <Chasing K> (2011). It was a project of racking a certain individual (K) offline using as clues information regarding him on the internet and social networking services. Also, they performed “overhearing” in <Ordinary Time> (2011). They secretly recorded people’s conversations at Anyang Recreation Grounds and selected from them words which were significant in their own right.

 

As a result of KKHH watching the residents of Wongok-dong while executing their project, the residents continued to create themselves goods which they needed, K was better off than the online information about him suggested, and the people at Anyang Recreation Grounds exchanged unpolished but honest and practical conversations, etc., All of these people behaved in the most appropriate way for each of the situations encountered. What kind of art would be fit to serve such people? It is possible that these individuals are already in the lead roles onstage in their lives and not lead characters of a work of art.

 

This is not to imply that KKHH has insistently remained in the observer’s role. While reestablishing a relationship between the artist and the artistically uninitiated, they simultaneously explored relationships between the personal space and the public space. In <Romantic Moments> (2012), KKHH collected the conventional and private stories of people while conversing with them and divulged them in secluded public places or displayed them through text. Further, they began to question our preconceptions and conventional notions in addition to capturing the forms of various relationships arising from our surroundings by presenting the relationship between imagination and the real (that imagination can be more beautiful than the real) in <Road to Eulwang-ri> (2011), the relationship between ideals and reality (that misunderstandings can be more beautiful) in <Do as the Natural Course> (2013) and the relationship between the real and the cyber (that real life can be better) in <Chasing K>. These artists’ concerns as such led to proverb-related works, including <The Boat Going to the Mountain> (2012) and <Holding Paper> (2012). This was because adages are also a kind of conventional idea.

 

More recently KKHH has been carefully observing the actions of people exercising in public parks. The objects of their interest are the habitual motions of suspect exercise effectiveness. Most people silently copy those motions. KKHH intends to quietly join the crowd and spread anew a convincing exercise move. Of course the exercise value of this motion is also questionable. These artists still refrain from actively soliciting the participation of others, and neither do they incite anything. They hope for things, which no one suspects, to naturally flow from among the people. This is what makes KKHH uniquely attractive.