Platform-L Art Center vows to embrace artistic diversity

Platform-L Contemporary Art Center in Nonhyeon-dong, southern Seoul

By Kwon Mee-yoo

Platform-L Contemporary Art Center, which opened in southern Seoul on May 12, aims to be an incubator for diverse art forms.

The center is run by the Taejin Culture Foundation, founded by Taejin International which owns global fashion brand Louis Quatorze.

Park Man-u, director of Platform-L who formerly led the Nam June Paik Art Center, said the Platform-L will focus on maintaining sustainability for young artists.

"There are many good creators in their 30s. However, public museums or art policies do not live up to their expectations. We will put more budgets into supporting young artists, designers and architects," Park said. "Platform-L's mother company is not just a manufacturing business. The creative energy coming from Platform-L could be turned into the mother company's brand Louis Quatorze."

Park organized two exhibits for the opening of the space ― Bae Young-hwan's "Pagus Avium" and Chinese artist Yang Fudong's "The Colored Sky: New Women II."

A scene from Yang Fudong’s video “The Coloured Sky: New Women II” / Courtesy of Platform-L Contemporary Art Center

Bae, who is known for his works reflecting on from popular culture to civilization, returns with a solo exhibit in four years since "Song for Nobody" at Plateau in 2012.

As the title of the exhibition implies, Bae's new works are centered on birds, which draw comparisons between modern people habituated to language, systems and nations to the birds in cages.

His latest work "Speech Thought Meaning" features a large parrot statue with its eyes covered with a golden hat, as if the bird has degraded. Hexahedral globes scattered around the parrot symbolizes suppression.

Four-channel video “Abstract Verb ― Can You Remember?” emphasizes the blurred boundaries between egos and objects through a dancer's movements similar to those of a bird.

"Modern people and birds both have the desire to fly, but we live in a place where it is difficult to fly. Everyone has the passion for deviation and the exhibit reflects such cravings," Bae said at a press preview last week.

In his first solo exhibit in Korea, Yang presents a multi-dimensional video installation at the Platform Live, a multifunctional space which can be transformed into a theater.

Film and contemporary art share similarities as technology develops and film evolved to focus on narrative, while art centers on image itself. “The Colored Sky: New Women II" is a sequel to Yang's "New Women" (2013) and offers a totally new cinematic experience.

The five channel video features three female characters representing modern women in China in the 1930s. The women's yearning for the future and the gap between the longing and the reality are juxtaposed with images of color flexiglass houses, a deer and a horse set in an artificial beach set.

"The video installation is a metaphor to the reality and fantasy offered by films. The spectators become the second director as they step into the gallery and watch the videos as they want to," Yang said.

The inaugural exhibits are on display through Aug. 7. Admission is 5,000 won for adults. For more information, visit platform-l.org or call 02-6929-4470.