— Voice and Dance Performance, 15min Public spaces at Palais Garnier, Paris, France Project by Ayoung Kim & Sébastien Bertaud Music Composition: Hyun-Hwa Cho

The project was realized under Pavillon Neuflize OBC program, research lab of the Palais de Tokyo 2015/2016 during its collaboration with the Opéra national de Paris, the Institut national de l’audiovisuel and the Groupe de recherches musicales (INA– GRM).

The bitumen appears both in ancient myths of great floods common to humankind and in the construction of Palais Garnier, an Opera house in Paris. When Palais Garnier was under construction, a branch of the Seine flooded. The architect Charles Garnier built an underground reservoir plastered with bitumen in order to stop the flooding that would not stop even after months of efforts to empty it. This space has protected Palais Garnier as the ballast water puts weight on the hull to stabilize the unloaded ship.

The artist has constructed In This Vessel We Shall Be Kept from appropriating common elements across time and space, which include the vessel (or the arc) waterproofed with bitumen to save the humanity from rain falling night and day for many days, the great flood mythologies and catastrophes.

In This Vessel We Shall Be Kept_Performance (2016) — Voice and Dance Performance, 15min

The project takes root in the basement of the Palais Garnier – specifically in the depths of its famous underground “lake” – to stage a long forgotten mythical flood. This artificial reservoir, which dates back to the construction of the edifice, is coated with pitch – a petroleum derivative with waterproofing properties – with which Noah supposedly caulked the hull of his ark. The Opera Garnier will become the flamboyant manifestation of a forgotten flood. (Chloé Fricout)

The bitumen appears both in ancient myths of great floods common to humankind and in the construction of Palais Garnier, an Opera house in Paris. When Palais Garnier was under construction, a branch of the Seine flooded. The architect Charles Garnier built an underground reservoir plastered with bitumen in order to stop the flooding that would not stop even after months of efforts to empty it.

This claustrophobic space has protected Palais Garnier as the ballast water puts weight on the hull to stabilize the unloaded ship. On top of this historical fact of Palais Garnier, the structural similarities of place inside of the opera house called ‘nef (nave)’ in French which is structurally shaped like a boat and designates the central corridor of the temple/cathedral.

The artist has constructed In This Vessel We Shall Be Kept from appropriating common elements across time and space, which include the vessel (or the arc) waterproofed with bitumen to save the humanity from rain falling night and day for many days, the great flood mythologies and catastrophes: the archetype and mythical elements of the great flood make common appearances from the Bible, Quran and the Epic of Gilgamesh of the ancient Mesopotamia which is now a troubled region. Also the structure of Palais Garnier and contemporary disaster narratives are diffused in the project.

The project was realized under Pavillon Neuflize OBC program, research lab of the Palais de Tokyo 2015/2016 during its collaboration with the Opéra national de Paris, the Institut national de l’audiovisuel and the Groupe de recherches musicales (INA– GRM).

Ayoung Kim (Currently lives and works in Paris and Seoul.)

Interested in the relationship between image, language, voice/sound and the formal properties of these elements, Ayoung Kim’s porous narrative structures seek possible integrations, articulations and collisions of things in between time, space, structure and syntax. In doing so, Ayoung Kim plays with the notions of crossings, transmissions, translations, transpositions and reversibility by focusing on unlikely encounters of ideas. Open to multidisciplinary and criss-crossing collective working processes, she adopts the devices of storytelling, narrativity and rhetoric to evoke alternative forms of reading, listening and thinking of our present human condition. Her work stands as experimentation focused on various types of writing and the narrative structure, on visual, sonic and linguistic levels.

Ayoung Kim had solo shows at Melbourne Festival (2017); Palais de Tokyo (2016) and created a performance at the national opera house in Paris, Palais Garnier (2016). She presented her works at the 56th Venice Biennale, Italy (2015); Maraya Art Centre, Dubai, UAE (2015); Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany (2012); Leeum Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea (2012); Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), New York, US (2011); Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro(MAM), Brazil (2011); 176/Zabludowicz Collection, London, UK (2011); Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK (2010) and many others. She was a resident artist at Pavillon Neuflize OBC Research Lab of Palais de Tokyo (2015-2016), and Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2012). She was awarded The British Institution Award from Royal Academy of Arts in the UK in 2010 and Young Artist of the Year Award from the Ministry of Culture in Korea, 2015.

Ayoung Kim

Soft monument 1 2008, Acrylic on canvas

Unlike the usual solid monuments, several paintings depict them as something cushiony and indefinite. The inscriptions on them are mostly worn and illegible or covered as well. Looking into the almost invisible writings, they are no more than meaningless slogans which are ill fit for the monuments. As a scathing satire for the absurdity and recklessness of human beings, the finger humans strive to peruse the texts as if the trivial slogans had a great deal of worth or particular secrets

Soft monument 2 2008, Acrylic on canvas

Soft monument 3 2008, Acrylic on canvas

Soft monument 4 2008, Acrylic on canvas

Soft monument 5 2008, Acrylic on canvas

Fishing the flat 2007, Acrylic on canvas

The finger-like characters are a type of visionary and futuristic human beings, with an excessive revolution or regression in the very end organs (hands or fingers) as subjects for impulsive and reckless behaviors. Though looking odd, they manage and control their world as Creator does. They create pseudo-nature imitating the real one, and make up an artificial paradise on their own through an array of actions like cutting, pasting ,sewing, etc.

Folding surface 2, 2010, Acrylic on canvas

Spring surface, 2010, Acrylic on canvas

Folding mountain, 2010, Acrylic on canvas

Undone 2 , 2012, Acrylic on canvas

One of my friends who is a teacher, posed to her elementary schoolers a question What makes a painting good? A variety of ideas were answered and I had a chance to see the papers. They said, it needs sincerity, personal characteristics, or it should be something the painter likes. Among them was a noticeable answer that perfectly fits into my idea. It says that a good painting is completed with no give-up of ones own idea.

It sounds quite simple, but that has never been easy to me. The depiction of an idea as exactly as an artist wants it to be, seems to be far from being easy, due to the inherent elusiveness. Sometimes I feel like taking a detour but it always ends up with restarting from the scratch. No matter how much time it takes, it seems desirable to face a problem squarely. To fulfill my own needs like scratching an itchy spot, is one of my reasons of painting.

BLOOM 2012, 9.5 in x 6.5 in x 6.5 in (H), 50 lb, 100 lb Mono Filament

BLOOM 2013, 6.25 in x 6 in x 3.5 in (H), 50 lb, 100 lb Mono Filament

BLOOM 2014, 10 in x 8 in x 6 in (H), 50 lb, 100 lb Mono Filament

My work involves creating 3-dimensional organic forms mostly in generic and biomorphic shapes. Through these forms, I attempt to express seemingly static yet dynamic characteristics of our evolving lives. While they resemble transitions and transformations of nature, the forms are also to capture subtle but continuous changes in our emotions, sentiments, memories and expectations.

I weave and connect traces and tracks of the subtle changes into organic forms. The organic forms are made with mass-produced industrial materials, in particular Monofilament and Cable Ties. They are non –durable, disposable, trivial, inexpensive and easily consumed materials. But, when I weave and connect them, they are transformed into organic visualizations. I want them to be creating lasting moments, evoking and encapsulating our precious thoughts.

I often find these moments from nature. I think nature allows us to pause and find things that have been overlooked and are inspiring. Nature provides me with rooms to find breakthroughs and answers, and gives me time to ponder into thoughts. Through my work, I want to bring to our attention the moments that nature allows us to find and look back. I present nature in abstract porous ways so that they can be filled with our moments.

URBAN SHELL , May 2011 Filed under Installation, Design, Mono Filament, Basketry

URBAN SHELL , May 2011 Filed under Installation, Design, Mono Filament, Basketry

Sui Park is a New York based artist and an interior architect born in Seoul, Korea. Her work involves creating 3-dimensional flexible organic forms of a comfortable ambiance that are yet dynamic and possibly mystical or illusionary.

She recently had a solo exhibition ‘Playing with Perception’ at the Denise Bibro Fine Gallery in Chelsea, New York in April 2016. She also had a solo exhibition ‘Garden of Humans’ at Kingsborough Community College, CUNY, Brooklyn, NY in March 2016. She participated over 50 exhibitions, including a recent exhibition, ‘Repsychling’ in Brooklyn, NY in November.

Sui Park’s education includes MDes in Interior Architecture at Rhode Island School of Design in 2013 and BFA in Environmental Design at Maryland Institute College of Art in 2011. Sui Park also has MFA and BFA in Fiber Art at Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea.

Sui Park