Smaller questions for art
.jpg?w=728)
By Kate Lim
There is a thick rectangular mat of straw on which apples are laid. Viewers could convince themselves that the apples came directly from a real farmer’s harvest, more fresh and unmediated than those mechanically displayed in the urbane supermarket. Then you can see, next to it, the price written on a wooden cuboid: 2,000 Wwon. To verify that the apple is purchasable, a small container with a few notes and coins is there, too. This is a work of art titled “Becoming” by Lee Kang-So made in 1974, featured at this year’s Busan Biennale. He is an artist who is credited with his experimental spirit in art-making, which is the grand theme the biennale.
“Becoming” is a typical example of participatory contemporary art, which many seasoned museum-goers probably encounter at various art events. You can casually drop a few bills into the container and take an apple with you, and that is the essence of the work. This kind of work adorns Instagram just like the images of sliced avocado on toast garnished with exquisite organic GMO-free smoked salmon do, for the record of the all-too-special and aesthetic experience of life. The image of holding the apple to one’s cheek with a cute caption such as “My first artwork purchase!” at only 2,000 won sums up the artistic experience of the viewer. Why do you have to be pensive and serious in front of art all the time anyway? All it takes is to take an apple with you, and you will be able to “enjoy” art enough to remember the puzzling and quirky moments spent at the museum and feel good about walking around the art gallery. In a way, the humble presentation of apples and a straw mat would not have been a complete artwork without the participant’s light-hearted mood; the kind of mood when you try on different kinds of clothes and hats in a shopping mall for fun. The genuine motive of trying on clothes is more or less to enjoy a momentary fanciful look of oneself. It shows the vain and frivolous side that one hankers after. Likewise, the act of putting money in a box and taking an apple with you in the art exhibition can be moderately entertaining.
On the other hand, there are viewers who think of this kind of work differently. They are general art-lovers, though they may not be art professionals, who understand art through their perceptual experience. These viewers are less visible online where picture-perfect images of one’s carefree experience of art events are posted and loudly flaunted. They do not take this kind of “buying-your-first-artwork” seriously, as far as I know. Since it is not their profession to inform the public the reason why they do not care about a work like “Becoming,” their critical mind seems to be non-existent to the eyes of the art world.
I would like to imagine myself asking a few small questions on behalf of these silent viewers about the work “Becoming.” My first question will be very simple: “Why is it art?” The artist just arranges apples, a straw mat and a price tag - objects we commonly see. They are nothing particular. The typical answer from the curator well-versed in the knowledge of contemporary art would be: “Art is not simply something that someone with special aesthetic capabilities paints or makes. Anything can be an art. This work Becoming embodies the idea that there is no barrier between art and life.” I would be undaunted by this seemingly well-constructed phrase of art, and will ask again: “No barrier between life and art? It sounds grand, but it’s only an idea. How can the enacting of anyone’s everyday life be art? You must be kidding.” Going to the supermarket to buy food, gossiping about people and social affairs absent-mindedly, being stressed about deadlines and the paltry sum of money paid for one’s labor, being crossed in love, mad with jealousy, and so on, can be, at best, materials for the artist (in the generic sense of the word, including the novelist, painter, actor and sculptor) but they are not themselves art. There is an undeniable distinction between art and life.
The argument could go on by the imagined counterargument saying: “Well, actually, the raison d’être of choosing the word Becoming as the title of this work is to convey that the ordinary, banal apple can become and becomes a work of art through the viewer’s participation. The artist brings the concept of this becoming to the foreground in this work.” So, the work is about this rather intellectual idea of transferring the banality to something not banal. The imagined “I” would ask again without hesitation: “Why does this particular artist or any other who makes similar things assume that we viewers don’t understand the idea of becoming in the matter of art? Why is he trying to teach us the idea of becoming? The artist should have a certain capability - I don’t know what and how - to make viewers susceptible to what is happening in the artwork. The idea of becoming and how to realize the very idea should be agonized over by none other than the artist himself, before he displays his work at galleries or museums, which are spaces for the public. That’s his own professional responsibility, as expected in any other profession, to fulfill. It is absolutely unnecessary for the artist to say, “Let’s think about the idea of becoming.” Instead, he should endeavor to bring the effect of becoming or transferring.” I would add: “Subtlety, or the indescribable feeling and beauty that I want to experience from art are not here in this conceptual work.”
There is hardly any chance for this kind of imagined discussion being accepted for current art symposiums or talks. The art world is too busy praising and encouraging works embodying big and intellectual ideas. For a change, those who care about art could disentangle themselves from the same commentaries and approvals of the cognoscenti, and should look for unpretentious and smaller questions of art.
Kate Lim is director of Art Platform Asia, an independent curator and art writer. Contact her at kate.yk.lim@gmail.com.