KIGOJA Standard Time (KST)

KIGOJA is pleased to present a solo-exhibition by  apt artist Morgan Wong (11 March – 16 April, 2016). In recent years, Wong has gained critical attention for his provocative works across a broad range of media. Best known for his durational performances, intricate installations and videos, Wong holds long-standing interests in connecting elements of temporality with materiality.

Continuing his earlier instances to explore poetic, absurd and immaterial ways of experiencing time and place, Wong’s latest project KIGOJA Standard Time (KST) concerns wider political implications of international time zones, and asks what constitutes our experience of time difference.

The artist claims,

“A number of countries have been reorganizing their respective time zone according to their economical and political needs. China has unified its five time zones to a single time zone for the whole nation; while Samoa skipped a day in return to facilitate trading with neighboring countries. In Korean Peninsula, the meaning of its time zone bears a strong political notion of colonization. North Korea has distanced itself with Korea’s colonial past by establishing it’s own Pyongyang Time in 2015 while lawmaker Myung Chul Cho in South Korea has also attempted to file bill in 2013 to retrieve the pre-colonial Korea Standard Time.”

For his solo-show at KIGOJA, Wong presents a fictional staging of the ‘KIGOJA Standard Time’, which is set to forty-five minutes ahead of the current Korean Standard Time (UTC + 9). An exhibition booking system for visitors will take place throughout the duration of the show, for which audience members will be asked to book a particular time to visit and experience the new non-existing time zone, (UTC +9.75). The exhibition also features new installation, video, and intervention that reflect on our relationships to time and place.

The exhibition curated by Yujin Min will accompany by a catalogue on the artist and his key concerns regarding the notion of time.

In addition to the exhibition, a conversation with the curator and artist will take place atRAT school of ART