Works at: Seoul Art Space_GeumCheon
Stays in: 2014
Genre: Visual Arts
Website: http://www.Johnreardon.info/
http://www.hyeminson.com
Profile:
Solo exhibition
2014 ‘The Growing Manual’, Seoul Museum of Art(upcoming), Seoul, KR
2012 ‘Minor Adjustments/Ghost’, Takeout Drawing, Seoul, KR
2011 ‘Minor Adjustments/Incheon’, Incheon Art Platform, Incheon, KR
Project
2011 ‘Visions of 140’, IAP! Summer Art Camp, Incheon Art Platform, Incheon, KR
Residencies
2014 Seoul Art Space_Guemcheon, KR
2012 Takeout Drawing, Seoul, KR
2011 Incheon Art Platform, Incheon, KR
Publication
2013 The Growing Manual, authored/edited by Hyemin Son and John Reardon, Rock-Paper-Scissors, KR (English & Korean, partly Malaysian)
2012 Minor Adjustments/Ghost, authored/edited by Hyemin Son and John Reardon, Takeout Drawing, KR (English & Korean)
2011 Minor Adjustments/Incheon, authored/edited by Hyemin Son and Hong-Ki Kim, Rock-Paper-Scissors, KR (English & Korean)
Works:
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| Ghost_Rooftop Movie Mashup, a hand-made MDF screen, barrowed 32 wooden palettes, an amplifier, speakers, and a mixing desk, 2012 |
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| Ghost_Ghost Tour, One-hour running tour in Itaewon, Seoul, Korea 2012 |
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| Ghost_Ghost Tour, One-hour running tour in Itaewon, Seoul, Korea 2012 |
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| Ghost_Ghost Tshirts, Silk-screen printing onto the tshirts, 2012 |
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| Ghost_Aviary, artists-designed flight cage (welded steel, steel mesh, wheels), 10 parakeets, 2012 |
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| Billboard, black water-based paint on plywood, Incheon Art Platform Bldg. A Rooftop, 540cm × 180cm, 2011 |
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| Visions of 1:40, IAP! Summer Camp Workshop, 2011 |
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| Visions of 1:40, IAP! Summer Camp Workshop, 2011 |
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| London, performance, Elephant & Castle, 2011 |
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| The Growing Manual, publication/plants/architecture, ongoingGrowth and Manual: On John Reardon and
Hyemin Son’s Collaboration and Community Activities
Kwon Jin, Chief Curator(Anyang Public Art
Project)
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Growth and Manual: On John Reardon and
Hyemin Son’s Collaboration and Community Activities
Kwon Jin, Chief Curator(Anyang Public Art
Project)
John Reardon and Hyemin Son always
collaborate in their work based on communities. The communities they have so
far chosen are not ones where they turn out some specific stories with specific
persons at a specific place during a certain period of time but ones approximating
spaces, situations, or groups of unspecified persons they associate with
through artist-in-residence programs. Unlike most community projects that
directly disclose some deficiency in our social system, their strategy is to
adopt some indirect method and the product of this method is like a chemical
action caused by chance. This product may be pleasurable when the fluent,
predictable artistic idioms of John Reardon meet the unpredictable place of
Korea. Let us review a few projects which Reardon and Son co-produced. The
Growing Manual is a research project displaying a process of forming
relationships with art-related institutions or communities in Malaysia,
Indonesia, England, Mexico, and Cuba. They began talks based on preliminary
research on relevant groups or institutions and offered seeds pertaining to a
specific environment and history. Growing plants from the seeds in the new
environment, they come to comprehend each different trait, deepening an
understanding of each other. A group of artists is likened to plants here, and
a publication introducing the artists’ works as a manual for the group of
artists and plants growing in different climates and environments. An
exhibition or an art system that can be interpreted as the soil for their
growth is preconditioned at the back of the manual. Another project <Minor
Adjustment> has content developed through Takeout Drawing (located in
Itaewon, Seoul) Café and Residency program. The main summary of this project is
the record of crimes committed by U.S. military personnel, civilian employees
of the U.S. military stationed in Korea, and their children in the Itaewon
area, over the last 20 years. Based on this summary, the two artists expand the
concept of a specific place as a form of art in collaboration with experts in
other fields such as folklore, shamanism, architecture, and design. The artists
had the Café staff wear the T-shirts with the names of criminals printed for a
certain period of time, projected the Ghost Tour on physical locations where
crimes were committed in Itaewon, and arranged relevant materials at the Book
Kiosk at Takeout Drawing. Artistic narratives were engendered naturally through
these activities. These are in fact similar to community programs created by an
art institution in a traditional sense. Reviewing their activities, we cannot
help but raise a simple yet underlying question without mentioning such terms
as an evolutionary process of a specific genre and relational aesthetics. Where
is the value of the artistic activities they pursue? That is to say, how are
these activities deriving from their engagement in a specific community’s social,
economic order associated with an art system? Should we imagine the growth of an
artist and the manual for this based on the limited soil of the art system?
Shouldn’t the seed of the artist or art grow not from the pot of the art system
but from the broad land of society? When launching a cooperative project, the
two artists make clear their stance and attitude. They take the motifs of their
projects from the communities for which they have concern, but related
activities are made in the apparent category of an art project. The naive
criticism that their projects brought about no substantial change in
communities is thus a groundless assertion. The best role community-based art
can assume is perhaps to maintain proper tension and distance from established groups
and work as a message to reflect on preexisting scenes and daily routines. All
the same, we still have some expectation and nostalgia for “community”
projects. Even if a project of community art is incomplete, it is like some
genuine confession that art can bring light to life - or it would like to do
so.
