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Two fine, young developing artists, nay, "manipulators of space" so to speak (and also dear friends), Ryo Arita and Sesselja Gudmundsdottir undertook a series of projects/presentations in September that I feel worthy of exploring. New York artist Arita presented food inspired creations in a show of his work at of all places the Gourmet Garage food shop in Soho in lower Manhattan. On closer, deeper inspection it made perfect sense-Ryo's work has always been based around food, conceptually encompassing realms that explore birth and degeneration-always perishable. A recent visit to his studio found Ryo, I hesitate to mention, crafting something involving a fragile, expensive paper made from sheep's skin (a type of scroll) hunted down somewhere in upstate New York on which Arita plans to scrawl self-portraits and ancient letter scripts with his own blood (no danger of this piece showing up at Gourmet Garage). Adding to Arita's notoriety, the Gourmet Garage show was shut down by New York health inspectors less than a week after its debut because of "health concerns". Biodegradable art may be all the rage in the art world (a similar thing happened to some of the work in the Berkeley Art Museum's "Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics" exhibit) but is not kosher as far as health departments are concerned. The Icelandic Sesselja Gudmundsdottir, based in Reykjavík, is an industrial designer who is most interested in the manipulation of space, in any guise, for artistic (and often psychological and social) purposes. She could easily have co-written any of Koolhaas's treatises on architectural space manipulation ("S, M, L, XL", "Delirious New York"). Sesselja's website, The Explorers, http://www.theexplorers.net/, went live in September and as expected is a conceptual wonder: mysterious, layered, "omni-directional". Some of her creations, conceptual in nature but often real and "physical", are intricate and engaging in a manner that only a designer keenly aware of space and how it might be manipulated for artistic purposes could devise. "Beings of Gratitude"-amorphous sculptures of "beings", perfect bodies of energy that each have their own personalities and qualities (used as awards given to designers and artists by an Icelandic art society); "The Ones Who Want To Be Eaten"-a project of conceptual prototypes for assorted chocolates with spiritual qualities ("The wonderful one", "The one who is here", "The romantic one"); "Thoughts on Time"-a powerful, essayistic poem and photographic essay that explores the nature of time, birth, creativity, mand death. Conceptually in concert with the "thoughts on time" project, and one of my favorites of her pieces, is "The Eternal Now": a drawing, sculpture, photographs, found pieces (including a watch which has no hands or means to tell time-meant for mass commercial manufacture), staged "installation moments", contemplative, poetic treatises, and finally, a short film consisting of a broken plate reassembling itself to a soundtrack of beautiful, experimental music. The shattered plate is a recurring theme-the pieces always put back together. (Back together.) The Eternal Now: It is a beautiful, stimulating place manifested within a wonderful piece of work.
The thing is that Theresa Hak Kyung Cha was creating "performance art" aside the actual movement that was defined in that way at the time. By this I mean that it seems she had less a desire to do "performance art" than she had to search out alternate ways of expressing things deep within her. Want to connect with your family? Okay, just put together little "sculpture books" that she could make specifically for and give to individual members of her family. Kitsch-like trinkets almost. Having a hard time reconciling the various worlds between the Korean language, English, and her adopted French? Fine, simply create pieces that call into question the "meaning" of language itself, that explore the common ground between language and zip in and out of the various modes. Go nonsensical with gabber that makes perfect sense in whichever language it is used. Not sure what "art" is really supposed to be? Okay, create pieces that call into question the definition of art, that often resemble "arts & crafts", or "books", "diagrams", "diary". Feel that "you" fails to often be in your work? Okay, do live performances where you stream-of-consciousness flow from within your being, on stage, for all to see, beautiful sets designed behind you, remembrances of your family all around you. Not because of some post-modern manifesto towards what art is supposed to be, or performance (this is in the 70's), but because using these various techniques are the only way you see possible of getting at that within you.
[end year]