http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2009/11/24/200911240051.asp:
WONJU, Gangwon Province - Su Jeoung sits across from me, arms resting on the table, beret nicely in place, and smiles calmly. "My life is with pizza, coffee, and art," she says. An interesting comparison, to say the least. Su said she has received a lot of inspiration from travelling. "I had many good experiences traveling. There is one purpose - to see art, to enjoy art - the United States, Paris, Norway, Italy, Germany - those created good feelings for my future business."
Su lives in Korea's least populated province - Gangwon-do. Despite, or perhaps because of that, she's a member of FIAC, the Parisian creative consortium, and regularly attends their events. Art is a cornerstone, but not her entire existence. To my surprise, it's the third thing she mentions.
She was a franchisee for 10 years with a large pizza company, but she found the terms unfair. Well-traveled and successful, she followed the well-worn path of creating her own business, but gave it a twist of gourmet and fringe.
"My dream was to be a businesswoman and an artist," she says.
Other things can be more easily numbered: Her gallery-cafe, Acozza, opened in January this year. Since then, eight exhibitions featuring about 30 artists have passed through. The artists are mostly Korean and female, but expats and men are not excluded. More than one creator has had their work grace walls in Paris, London or Chicago, but others have only a show or two to their name.
To our left is the work of Kim Ji-young. From this distance, 15 meters, the cute girly faces and bright colors belong to cartoons, and the bandage on the eye makes one think, "poor thing." It's only after a few steps back that one notices the earring is a chain tethered to another character and the title reads "Domestic Violence." Other pieces, in similar style, draw inspiration from Na-young and the many similar stories that aren't quite as gruesome or public.
Acozza's M.O., however, isn't gloom-and-doom, it's balance; turning back to the wall behind Su, there are colorful and gentle pastels into which it would be difficult for even the most macabre mind to inject subliminal sorrow.
A month prior, computer monitors or screens were placed where paper sits now. "Mix and Media," the first exhibition of its kind in Wonju, featured audio, visual, and still art side-by-side. One false documentary detailed the international clashes that occurred after a bridge was built connecting Europe and Africa, a MacBook contained electronic symphonies, and the heavily saturated, subtly sardonic, work of art coordinator and barista Hanna draped the opposite wall.
My clearest memory of that exhibit, however, was sitting at another table with two friends, enjoying the balsamic reduction sauce on the Pizza alla Ortolana with a Chilean red, and watching Barbie get a feel on the back wall. Another doll carried her up a volcanic hillside and their plastic lips touched. A molded hand slowly slid downward. I tried to make the craning of my neck less than overt but failed; I'd chosen the wrong side of the table at which to sit.
"It's my take on the little mermaid," explained Suq H. Won, "A girl gives up something of herself and discovers sexual pleasure. But it's not so much about the story as the framing and editing." In a way, it's hardly about anything but coincidence; consider how welcome comments on female sexuality are in Confucian societies. Had the artist scheduled to fill that space come through, this piece wouldn't have been shown.
The work that was scheduled to (and did) feature included a brief video in which she both lovingly and savagely mined fruit from a fresh pineapple. The exhibition brochure made references to John the Baptist, but she was willing to further explain in a more universal language:
She had found a small pineapple on the edge of a farm while staying in Hawaii. It was too small to eat - "probably leftover from someone stealing something" - but she took it home and hydroponically "planted" it in a jar of water. A month later, she couldn't take it back to Korea, but she couldn't leave it either. Consumption was her conclusion. Maternal and murderous instinct conflicted, and one, the tastier, if less nurturing, won out. Or it's "cannibalism as an act of loving," as her brochure explains.
She harbors as much affection for her hometown as she did about the fruit. "Wonju is 10 or 20 years behind. If it becomes a media art center, it'll be after I die. I'm only hoping to lay the base, the background." Her attitude is pragmatic.
However, there is a second column of thought to consider when accounting for the growth of an art industry: The business-creative model has been proven successful by others. T.S. Eliot was a banker and publisher in his later years, and Charles Ives sold insurance when he wasn't composing or lying naked on his piano.
Of their ilk, but not lying naked on a pizza, Su sits waiting to trade several pieces of real property to fund a further vision, instead of a golden parachute. By summer 2010, Acozza Gallery, a second space, will have opened. Su's excitement is clear; artists have already agreed to exhibit, and the contemporary metal shell of the building-to-be has already been erected.
There's a new 10-page exhibition program under my arm, as there usually is when I leave. The question of how many sisters it first meets in my desk drawer, as well as the question of whether this seed will germinate in our lifetimes, has yet to be answered.
"Changing thought, changing future," reads Acozza's slogan. Thought clearly has already changed; the issue that remains is how soon the future will follow suit.
(myzomaniacal@gmail.com)
By Darren Bean
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