#6 Art that Earn One’s Keep

SBS artmentary (art+documentary), “Art that Earn One’s Keep” imposes the question, ‘Is contemporary art really necessary to our society?’ and travels across the United States of America and Europe to meet with various international artists, art critics and sociologists of art to ruminate the answers to this question. This artmentary is narrated by Tablo, a Korean hip-hop musician.

First and foremost, Inhwan Oh had won the “Korea Artist Prize 2015”, an award and exhibition program, which cultivates representative artists of Korea and promotes them into international artists. Oh’s work, ‘Looking Out for Blind Spots’ presents spatial experience of blind spots to the audience by utilizing the blind spots of CCTV installed in the exhibition space. Oh also invites visually impaired person as docents, providing cultural experience of blind spots we never thought of.

Whereas in Belfast, the capital city of Northern Ireland, the exhibition of ‘Felix Gonzalez-Torres’, an ‘icon of contemporary art’ was held. Torres is well known for inducing participation of the audience. He rejects the usual ‘Do Not Touch’ label in the museum, and not only allows people to touch but also take the sweets and papers, which are the integral elements of Torres’ work.

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania of U.S., there is ‘Conflict Kitchen’, a take-out restaurant that sells cuisine from the countries in conflict relationship with the U.S. This restaurant is co-organized by contemporary artists, Jon Rubin and Dawn Weleski from 2010 and they have been introducing cuisines from Iran, Palestine, Afghanistan, North Korea and more.

There’s also an artist who produced work out of women’s chatter. An international feminist and contemporary artist, Suzanne Lacy suggests new genre of public art with making the process of discussions and debates into works of art through Crystal Quilt and Between the Doors and the Streets. Lacy states that contemporary art is not just about creating beauty, but also creating meaning for the people.

In addition, this artmentary meets with artist and film producer, Heung-soon Lim who won the Silver Lion Award in 2015 Venice Biennale with his film, Factory Complex and artist, Hojun Song who launched the world’s first private satellite. With this encounter, we come to reflect upon the social role and responsibility of contemporary art and the reason for its existence within our society.