Artsonje Center

The BLACK SHEEP LECTURE SERIES was initiated in 2009 by Prof. Hunyee Jung and Dirk Fleischmann at Hansung University. From 2011 to 2012 the lectures were hosted by SAMUSO: Space for Contemporary Art in the Hanok of Artsonje Center. The program includes informal presentations from international art practitioners. The audience is invited to contribute to the discussions in a casual setting in the Hanok of Artsonje Center. The various lectures address a wide spectrum of topics, genres and artistic practices. In addition, all events will give insights into the personal background and relation to art education of the presenters.

Jeff Gabel, aka Thomas Stolperer, (*1968) is an American artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Gabel's work typically involves small-scale portraits or figures rendered from imagination, accompanied by scrawled captions. Gabel has also exhibited translations of different types of writing, primarily literature, into various formats. His translated adaptation of the novella "Vierundzwanzig Stunden aus dem Leben einer Frau" (Twenty-four Hours in the Life of a Woman) by Stephan Zweig, rendered in pencil in large-scale comic book format, and his audio/visual translation/adaptation of "Gladius Dei" by Thomas Mann have been exhibited and reviewed repeatedly. Gabel's translations typically attempt a relatively literal portrayal of the content, while largely ignoring editorial conventions and appropriateness of style and voice.

THE BLACK SHEEP lecture #48 Olaf Nicolai September 24, 2012, Mon

Olaf Nicolai was born in Halle a.d.Saale in the former German Democratic Republic in 1962. He lives and works in Berlin. Nicolai studied fine art at the School of Applied Arts, Schneeberg and German literature and philology at the Universities of Leipzig, Budapest, and Vienna. In 1992, he completed his Ph.D. on the Vienna Group.
Nicolai's work is conceptual in nature and is often characterized by (socio)political references, in which multiple antipodal aspects (socialist and capitalist, hedonist and idealist) merge and even overlap. Play is an ambivalent motif in his oeuvre, the element that makes possible the combination of extremes over a new common denominator.

THE BLACK SHEEP lecture #47 Simon Dybbroe Møller August 31, 2012, Fri

Simon Dybbroe Møller (*1976 in Aarhus (DK); lives in Berlin). Dybbroe Møller works in a wild array of media. Or rather: he uses stuff that exists in the world along side him to produce what he exhibits. His work has often been described in terms borrowed from the field of literature: as condensed linguistic miniatures or hermetic self-contained aphorisms - as short prose with its own immanent logic. One could equally, with a nod to music, describe Dybbroe Møller's most recent production as non-hierarchical noise.

THE BLACK SHEEP lecture #46 Ibon Aranberri August 10, 2012, Fri

Early works of Ibon Aranberri have transcended by concentrating the tension between local unsolved prelinguistic paradigms and the establishment of the generic cultural codes. Educated under the influence of the formalist tradition in the Basque Country - Spain, his practice tries to blur the limits of the modernist repertory embracing the subjectivity of the cultural critique. Beyond a thematic specificity this practice goes from sculptural opaque surfaces to collective communions, frequently recurring to different cartographic techniques and tracing a horizon of a political romanticism. The relationship between the constituted spaces and the projection of the primordial landscape is a recurrent basis in this multiplicity.

THE BLACK SHEEP lecture #45 REAL DMZ PROJECT 2012 August 2, 2012, Thur

The Real DMZ Project 2012 is held in the border area near DMZ, in Cheorwon-gun, Gangwon-do. The exhibition follows the course of the Cheorwon Security Tour and it includes works by 11 contemporary artists who offer their own viewpoint on the divided reality of the Korean peninsula in today’s context. The participating artists have long been interested in the history of the DMZ and the division of Korean nation and its consequences. In the Black Sheep Lecture the artists will discuss how the ideas for their works evolved and will give insights in the preparation process and background of their projects. www.realdmz.org

THE BLACK SHEEP lecture #44 Antoni Muntadas July 24, 2012, Tue

Antoni Muntadas is an artist and MIT Professor of the Practice, ACT. His work addresses social, political and communications issues such as the relationship between public and private space within social frameworks, and investigates channels of information and the ways these may be used to censor or promulgate ideas. His projects are presented in different media such as photography, video, publications, the Internet, installations, and urban interventions.

THE BLACK SHEEP lecture #43 Hans Maria de Wolf June 20, 2012,Wed

Hans Maria de Wolf studied Art history and Archeology at the Free University of Brussels and at the Columbia University in New York. In 2002, he obtained his PhD with an exegesis of the central work in the oeuvre of Marcel Duchamp. For his lecture he will present an original version of Duchamp’s work <Box in a Valise>(1935-41), a portable museum of reproductions and replicas of Duchamp’s most important works.

THE BLACK SHEEP lecture #42 Roger M. Buergel May 16, 2012, Wed

The 1990s have witnessed the emergence of a new player in the art world: the curator. Who is this figure and what precisely is its function? Although by now curators are being poured out by academia on an almost industrial scale, there is hardly any systematic discourse about what curatorial discipline entails?beyond incessant networking or dreaming up half-baked exhibition concepts. Peppered with a modicum of personal experience, this seminar will attempt to nail down the elusive figure of the curator.

THE BLACK SHEEP lecture #41 Andreas Fogarasi May 9, 2012, Wed

Andreas Fogarasi (b. 1977, Vienna) uses forms of display that are reminiscent of minimalism and conceptual art to explore questions of space and representation. Between a documentary and a sculptural practice, he critically analyses the aestheticization and economization of urban space and the role of architecture and the cultural field in contemporary society.

THE BLACK SHEEP lecture #40 Quynh Vantu April 24, 2012, Tue

Quynh has explored these topics across the globe through various residencies and fellowships. Most recently she was a DAAD Scholar participating in Olafur Eliasson’s Institut fur Raumexperimente, a satellite studio and experimental educational platform for Eliasson’s students from the Univeristat der Kunste - Berlin. The institute fosters the unique opportunities for the cross pollination of ideas and inspirations by its location within Eliasson’s working studios.

THE BLACK SHEEP lecture #39 Charles Esche February 17, 2012, Fri

The talk will move from the meta to the micro level, placing the activities of one northwest European museum in its particular context today when some very basic paradigms of culture and capital are shifting. It will look at how 'modern times' were constructed in the museum and how a re-examination of their assumptions is one of the urgent tasks of the contemporary art institution. The talk will also look at the potentiality of the art museum and its collections to introduce ways of storytelling that release other possibilities from the past into the present. The programs and policies at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven will be the concrete examples of these how larger processes can be developed in detail.

THE BLACK SHEEP lecture #38 Yong Soon Min February 1, 2012, Wed

Yong Soon Min will present a discussion of her work that engages interstices of the collective and the personal subjectivities that questions our critical positions. She has a diverse arts practice that is mostly mixed media installations and also includes curating and teaching. She will highlight projects including a video about North Korea that was shown at the 10th Havana Bienal, to an intimate work, “Overseas / at sea,” shown in Los Angeles last year. She will also discuss curatorial projects addressing Korean diaspora at the 4th Gwangju Biennial, an exhibition of Bahc Yiso’s Fallayavada and an examination of Korea’s and Vietnam’s relationship.

THE BLACK SHEEP lecture #37 Heiner Holtappels December 12, 2011, Mon

Heiner Holtappels (*1951 in Krefeld, Germany) studied at the Staatliche Kunstakademie in Dusseldorf under K.O. Gotz and sat the state examination in fine arts, philosophy and art history. In addition to his function at the Netherlands Media Art Institute he is a senior lecturer in Autonomous Art at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Arnhem. He is a member of the board of directors of the 5 Days Off Media Foundation, Dyne.org Foundation, Moois Media Foundation, Nan Hoover Foundation. He sits on the advisory boards of the Center of Art, Sangeorgiu de Mures and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest (both in Romania), and from 2000 through 2005 was chairman of the committee on Visual Art and Design for the Cultural Council in the Netherlands.
His lecture follows his personal biography (by images and words) and discuses the different aspects of visual art from his critical studies: Holtappels will talk about his work, the role of the academies, the lack of scientific research and developments of the arts in the past 50 years. From his perspective as director of the Dutch Institute for Media Art, he will describe the (Dutch) infrastructure of politics and economics. He will end his lecture with a discussion about the function of new media art.
The lecture will not be presented as a monologue but as a dialogue. Interruption requested! The lecture will be held in English. No Korean interpretation.

THE BLACK SHEEP lecture #36 Jun Yang November 10, 2011, Thur

Jun Yang is an artist who grew up in Austria, but moved in the recent years to Taipei and Yokohama. He will talk about several of his projects - initiating a restaurant (ra'mien) in Vienna, building a garden (for the Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig) or a hotel (at the same museum). Yang will also present his project "a contemporary art centre (taipei) - a proposal" which started as his contribution to the Taipei Biennial 2008 that later resulted in co-founding "Taipei Contemporary Art Center".

Jun Yang's work has been shown amongst others at the 51st Venice Biennial 2005 (Italy), Liverpool Biennial 2006 (UK), Manifest 4 2001 (the European Biennial, Germany) or International Documentary Film Festival Marseille (France, 2001). In Korea he has been participating in the Platform in Kimusa of Platform 2009 and Platform 2010: Projected Image; and most recently his work will be in the exhibition 《City Within the City》 due to open November 11th 2011

THE BLACK SHEEP lecture #35 Roger M.Buergel October 25, 2011, Tue

Roughly a year before the opening of the Busan Biennale 2012, its artistic director Roger M. Buergel will explain his perspective on exhibition-making in general and learning in particular. Against the prevalent trends of knowledge-production and relational well-being in the arts, Buergel will explore the notions of cruelty and betrayal as, perhaps, indispensable elements of aesthetic learning. While today’s cultural conditions push the biennale-type exhibition slowly but surely into the direction of the art fair (a new model of art fair that is peppered with artistic interventions and political rhetorics), “Garden of Learning” (the coming Busan Biennale) will emphasize intangibles money can’t buy.

Artsonje Workshop & Screening

2011 6th Artsonje Workshop "Small Spaces in Mekong Region" December 2, 2011(Fri)

Under the title “Small Spaces in the Mekong Region,” the 2011 6th Artsonje Workshop invites the directors of four independent art spaces in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Vietnam to introduce their spaces and activities as well as the contemporary art scene in the Mekong region.

The longest river in Southeast Asia, the Mekong starts from the Tibetan Plateau and runs through China’s Yunnan province, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, and serves as a main artery of transport and everyday life for the people living in the region. Among these countries, the directors of four independent art spaces in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Vietnam have been invited to offer their various perspectives on the art scene surrounding the Mekong region, which is at the confluence of many different cultures. Besides reflecting the sense of identity that is specific to the Mekong region, these art spaces are also interesting in that they are managed independently. The small spaces explore alternative practices to contemporary art each through their own unique program of exhibitions and activities. The 2011 6th Artsonje Workshop will serve as a first step to promote exchange and cooperation with contemporary art spaces in the Mekong region by offering an occasion to share thoughts on the direction of contemporary art spaces in Asia as well as explore the potential for future collaborations with Artsonje Center.

THE BLACK SHEEP lecture @ Artsonje Center

Artsonje Workshop & Screening