An exhibition is always a kind of opportunity, yet also a form of judgment. In today’s art system, those who offer opportunities often simultaneously act as judges. As artists who step forward, we are expected to shine at the site of opportunity and remain confident under judgment—this is the demand placed upon us by contemporary society.

Yet the art we love grants us a certain freedom to deviate from this demand. To be insufficient for art, to be unfaithful to it—nevertheless, we seem to have always approached art with determination and resolve. This is especially true of contemporary art, of the art of our time, and of the academic teachings we have inherited.
 
“The power of art does not lie in retreating into art’s own enclosed world.”

《All Tomorrow’s Parties》 is a brief exhibition bringing together seven teams (or more precisely, nine individuals). After gathering under a rather tight schedule last winter, the participants spent the winter apart and reconvened in the exhibition space, each in their own distinct form.

Having observed them over the past several months, the writer hoped they would enter the exhibition space as figures shaped by their own decisions rather than conditioned by the gaze and judgment of others (including the writer). Should the works have been distorted in any way by the writer’s role as a curator, the responsibility would lie with the writer alone.

While harmony was sought within the exhibition, the writer also wished to remind the participants that the countless parties held at Andy Warhol’s Factory were repetitions of dissonance—sites of indulgent desire. And that Warhol once remarked that everyone would be world-famous for fifteen minutes. Regardless of how one defines an artist, the party of these participants is bold—wow!

 
Text by Lee Seonghui

References

• 《올 투모로우즈 파티스 (All Tomorrow’s Parties)》