Video Art from Korea

Foreword
We introduce video art by Korean artists produced during the last decade from the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (FAAM) collection in this exhibition.

Hong Sungmin’s 7 Characters in Andalou, A Girl with a Bear 2 : Sleeping Beauty and Jo Seub’s Tragic Love-No Title 5, are works exhibited in the past ‘Fukuoka Asian Art Triennales’ held in the FAAM. Making references to contemporary popular culture in Korea, these videos present narratives with a wry sense of humor and make a commentary on issues hidden behind the façade. Three other Korean artists, Moon Kyungwon, An Jungju and Kim Jimin joined the FAAM Artist in Residence Program. They produced works with a distinct Fukuoka flavor though their research and exchanges with the locals during their stay in Fukuoka.

Remaking the Magritte by Park Dong-ju, a video artist from Busan, is specially shown in this exhibition in cooperation with the Busan Museum of Art (BMA). The FAAM signed the Agreement of Cooperation with the BMA in 2008 and since then mutual exchange activities, such as exchange exhibitions, have been organized. Fukuoka and Busan have been in sister-city relationship for 22 years. As we watch Trans-, a video work by Kim Seongyoun, an artist from Busan, we realize once again the geological closeness between two cities.

We would like to invite you to see Korean arts and video art together with the past exhibition catalogues published by the FAAM and the BMA.

Participated Video Artists in the FAAM’s Residence Program
Moon Kyungwon
Stayed in Fukuoka from 8 September to 8 December 2004. The artist shot works such as Stop it! in Tenjin Underground Mall and Kawabata Shopping Arcade, during her time. Involving many students of Hakata technical high school and local residents, her video may be the most extensive work among the other works produced in the FAAM’s residence Program with a distinctly Fukuoka character.
Meanwhile, she spent her busy days participating in the exhibition ‘AniMate。’ at the FAAM and Fukuoka City Information Plaza in the City Hall and designing a poster for ‘Focus on Asia Fukuoka International Film Festival’.

Kim Jimin
Stayed in Fukuoka from 7 September to 16 November 2010, the artist produced works using brand name tags attached to clothes during his stay. In addition, he shot a video at Miyajidake Shrine to create a stop motion animation and exhibited his large-sized work Fan 3.6 in Kawabata Shopping Arcade.
He also held workshops to create The World Under the Sea, using stickers made from xeroxed copies of brand name tags for elementary and junior high school students.

An Jungju
The artist produced a series of video works, shooting real footages of famous gates around the world and dubbing spoken onomatopoeias over the original sounds. During his stay in Fukuoka from 7 September to 16 November 2010, he created a video which formed a part of the series and twenty one people joined in his video project. While individual participants watched a video, shot at Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine, the artist pointed at people and cars appearing in the video and asked them to dub onomatopoeias over the original sounds. He also shot footages of elementary school kids singing and used those footages to create a video called Videano Project (Fukuoka).