Frieze Seoul could also be over, however as ARTnews reported from the bottom final week, there’s nonetheless loads of artwork to see within the Southern Korean capital, together with Anicka Yi’s first survey in Asia, on the Leeum Museum of Artwork. Additionally on the Leeum Museum, which is operated by the Samsung Basis of Tradition, is a three-month public venture in collaboration with the Aerocene Basis, titled “Aerocene Seoul.”
The exhibition is a part of the Leeum’s “Thought Museum,” the establishment’s first public program supported by the Chanel Tradition Fund that options occasions equivalent to Museo Aero Photo voltaic, an enormous, community-built, floating construction constructed from reused plastic luggage. The baggage are lower and taped collectively to type large swaths of canvas. After filling the luggage with air (with the assistance of a gentle breeze), the solar’s warmth warms the plastic pores and skin that kinds the construction, and over the course of the day, the sculpture begins to drift like a fossil gas–free scorching air ballon. The Thought Museum (Thought is an acronym for inclusivity, variety, Equality, and entry) is a multi-year initiative exploring the intersection of atmosphere, artwork, philosophy and know-how.
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Aerocene is the brainchild of artist Tomás Saraceno, whose work has beforehand concerned spiders, floating sculptures, gentle, and extra, all in service of worldwide consciousness. However fairly than an art work, Aerocene is a “neighborhood,” in accordance with the artist’s studio, that capabilities extra like a company. In Seoul, the venture will interact native communities within the metropolis and elsewhere in South Korea, encouraging public participation within the creation of sustainable artwork and eco-social discourse.
The Leeum venture runs via September 29. ARTnews mentioned this venture with Saraceno and two of his colleagues: Helen Jungyeon Ku, head of analysis and public packages on the Leeum Museum and curator of the Thought Museum, and Joaquin Ezcurra, an Aerocene Basis collaborator. The dialog follows beneath. It has been edited for readability and size.
ARTnews: What made you resolve to deliver the Museo Aero Photo voltaic to Seoul and the Thought Museum?
Helen Jungyeon Ku: This Aerocene Seoul venture actually aligns with a symposium we hosted final 12 months that gathered science, theorists, artists, and activists to debate totally different strategies of sustainability. It was referred to as “Thought Museum: Ecological Turns.” Tomás joined the symposium although Zoom and his involvement and concepts have been so highly effective that we wished to ask him to the museum in particular person, and his Aerocene neighborhood very a lot aligns with how we need to interact with the general public. Having him here’s a actual alternative to construct our personal department of neighborhood round sustainable pondering and combine it into the worldwide Aerocene neighborhood.
ARTnews: I’ve seen photographs of the Museo Photo voltaic each within the air and with individuals inside it. Two years in the past, on the Shed in New York Metropolis, there was a model that was full of a ventilator. Are you able to inform me about a few of the sculpture’s totally different modalities?
Tomás Saraceno: The sculpture works to deliver individuals collectively—native communities come collectively to gather the plastic luggage, and so they assemble to museum collectively. However to me, probably the most fascinating type the sculpture takes is as a banner. Many instances in numerous iterations it has been utilized by activists to elevate up messages as you’d use a helium ballon. You’ll be able to write a message proper alongside the physique, and because it lifts into the sky, you may see the phrases from very far off.
ARTnews: I’m within the Aerocene Backpack, a floating sculpture that may be constructed by anybody. Are you able to inform me in regards to the mechanics, how does it work? What does it stand for?
Saraceno: A giant a part of the Aerocene neighborhood is shifting away from the concept of possession and towards sustainable sharing and dwelling. The backpack is a part of that dialogue. Despite the fact that we work with establishments and galleries, no collector can purchase an Aerocene Backpack—we received’t permit it. However individuals can study to assemble one on their very own. The directions are on the web site. And we’ll mortgage them out with the hope that, if you happen to aren’t utilizing it, you’ll move it alongside to another person locally. We hope this helps individuals take into consideration the connection between individuals and objects, and the way we are able to share instruments that we don’t use every single day with our neighbors. Via that sharing, they are going to at some point hopefully decrease the quantity of waste and reduce the dependency on shopper items. Partial and customary possession is one thing very a lot on the coronary heart of the Aerocene neighborhood.
ARTnews: So then, other than the sustainability facet, the concepts of sharing and reusability are integral to each the Aerocene communities’ mission and the Leeum Museum.
Saraceno: Sure, positively. Right here’s an amazing instance. For the Museo Aero Photo voltaic in Seoul we construct a huge canvas—1,200 sq. meters. Then that was folded into one of many biggest-ever examples of the construction. And it was very fascinating as a result of it was constructed partially out of one other Museo Aero Photo voltaic, from a neighborhood in Thailand, that was created final 12 months.
Joaquin Ezcurra: And that Museo Aero Photo voltaic was taped along with two different sculptures that got here all the way in which from Argentina, one which was tied to the idea of democracy in faculties and one other that was being flown with a message in protection of public schooling. So all these messages and experiences have come collectively to type the sculpture that now we have right here in Seoul.
ARTnews: And was the Museo launched efficiently?
Ezcurra: Oh, sure! It was such a magical second. We had an entire workforce from the Leeum working collectively. We took the sculpture to a park. It took like an hour to get hundreds of cubic meters of air into the Museo, and it was superb. It simply lifted up into the environment. It’s efficiency artwork. It’s sculpture. It’s physics. It’s actually an instance of what the world might be.