Installation view of 《Voice of Metanoia – Two perspectives》 © MMCA

For artists JEON Joonho and MOON Kyungwon, both 43 years old, this year will certainly be unforgettable. Since forming their collaborative team, their projects have continued to achieve major accomplishments.
 
They were invited to exhibit at Documenta in Kassel, Germany—an exhibition held every five years—becoming the first Korean artists to participate in 20 years following Nam June Paik and Yuk Keun-byung. They also received the Noon Art Award at the Gwangju Biennale and were selected for the 2012 Korea Art Prize by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.
 
The two artists first met in 2007 on a flight to Taiwan for the Asian Art Biennale. After coincidentally participating together in several international art events, they began assisting with each other’s installations and offering sharp critiques of one another’s work. Eventually, they decided to form a team and begin working collaboratively.
 
When interviewed at MOON Kyungwon’s studio in Naesu-dong, Seoul, the artists explained that their work began from doubts about what art could do for society. JEON Joonho said: “Contemporary art clearly operates within hierarchies—powerful curators, collectors, organizers, artists, Western hegemony, and Asian minorities. Rather than discourse around artworks themselves, social maneuvering and relationships often become more important. I became tired of this system.”
 
MOON Kyungwon added: “It often felt like a closed league of insiders, and Asian artists sometimes seemed included merely for representation among Western artists. That felt exhausting. We began questioning whether we should continue working in this way.” As a result, the artists sought perspectives beyond the narrow boundaries of the art world. They wanted to ask other practitioners in visual culture what beauty means and what philosophy art should pursue.
 
Over the past two and a half years, they summarized their exploration of art’s social function through collaborations with other disciplines in the project News from Nowhere. The project was inspired by British artist and designer William Morris (1834–1896), who expressed his belief that “art is an indispensable part of life for free and happy people.”
 
JEON Joonho explained: “Just as William Morris imagined England 250 years into the future in order to critique the society of the nineteenth century, we also borrowed a future perspective to look at the present. If humanity were to start again after the end of the world, what form would art take? It felt like writing that future from a blank page.”
 
The project consists of the video work El Fin del Mundo, which depicts the final work of an artist before the end of the world and the awakening of aesthetic consciousness in a new humanity afterward; collaborative works with designers and engineers producing objects related to life after the apocalypse; and interviews with experts from various fields discussing the present and future of art. A book compiling the entire process, ‘News from Nowhere’ (Workroom Press), has also recently been published. Among those interviewed were internationally renowned figures such as poet Ko Un, filmmaker Lee Chang-dong, and Japanese architect Toyo Ito. Meeting them was not easy.
 
JEON Joonho recalled: “We were artists from a relatively unknown region, while they were internationally recognized figures. It was understandable that they might suspect we were trying to use their names. Proving our sincerity was difficult.” However, once the interviewees understood the artists’ genuine intentions, they actively participated without any compensation.
 
The artists say they themselves benefited most from the project. MOON Kyungwon said: “Over the past two years, listening to the voices of others helped me overcome doubts and despair about whether art has any real value.” JEON Joonho added: “Architect Toyo Ito went to the disaster area after the Great East Japan Earthquake without any protective equipment and worked to redesign the urban environment. Watching him, I realized that sometimes the world needs romantic idealists who believe artists can contribute something to society. Through this project, I regained hope in art.”
 
The artists plan to continue their collaborative work in the future. Having received invitations from several biennales, they said that the project generated a storm of ideas, which they intend to develop further.

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