Spectre-Technique

Spectre-Technique is a project that originates from a solo exhibition by  APT artist Joungmin Yi, an artist whose primary medium is painting. The characters appearing in the project are: Joungmin Yi(artist), Hyungjin Kim(designer), Eda Kang(composer), Hyejin Jang(curator), and Jaeyong Park(curator).

As a project, Spectre-Technique does not take the form of an exhibition that highlights an artist’s development over a certain period. Rather, it attempts to generate a ground on which the artist’s co-workers and the exhibition space itself – which usually exist in a mode close to spectre – can add their voices.

For instance, Hyungjin Kim(designer) writes a very short novel of which the protagonist is the New Horizons, a space probe sent to Pluto. He also designs signs for windows of the exhibition space and runs a seminar on the uselessness of typography. Eda Kang(composer) creates ‘a music for an exhibition space,’ which is a result of his ongoing concern on the act of making music. Jaeyong Park(curator) become an interviewee of the artist, rather than interviewing the artist for an artist talk. Hyejin Jang joins a meditator that has been practicing meditation since the 1970s to organize a group meditation, attempting to find the ‘walking-form,’ a recurring concept in the artist’s work.

Spectre-Technique takes place at the Work on Work Studio, which is a shared office and library run by the curatorial initiative Work on Work. For the current project, the studio does not turn into a white cube; instead, it maintains its function as an office and a library during the period of the project. The artist and her co-workers select a small batch of books for the visitors to read and rearrange the space to both present the artist’s works and keep the original function of the space.

Spectre-Technique raises questions on the potential meaning of a solo exhibition by an artist. The project also reflects on the meaning of organizing an exhibition. When an artist presents her works in an exhibition, she intends to communicate with those that appreciate her creation and generate meanings. The title of the exhibition Spectre-Technique is a subject that the artist has long been investigating, and the co-workers that ‘appear’ in the project play the role of the initial audience of the artist. They try to communicate with the artist in their own ways and generate different meanings together with the artist and those that appreciate the project.