Parking Lot Project

"Parking Lot Project" at Artsonje provides an alternative space for people who wish to intermingle with truly liberated art forms from strict museum spaces. Rather than turning the parking lot into a conventional exhibition space, the project escapes the conventional idea of "formal parking lot" and "formal exhibition space" to create a new space where "ordinary" meets "art." The Parking Lot Project, which is held at Artsonje's underground parking lot, showcases about 1 - 2 events per year, and has offered a space for scouting new artists and for experimenting with various projects of innovative methods. It has also been noted for providing a multicultural space of performances, parties, and just pure fun.

Project I - Animation
1999. 2. 13 ~ 4. 11
This project depicts works by 6 young artists (Beom Kim, Dongi Lee, Yong-suk Chun, Chang-jun Lee, Sujin Chung, and Eun-jung Hwang) whose animation works emancipate themselves from institutional power and establishment, and oppose the gravity of real life through comic sensitivity. In addition to the exhibition, it showcases performances by art rock groups such as "Shin-hye Hwang Band" and "DJ Dalparhan Ki-young Kang" as well as "Costume Play Party."

Project II - No-Parking
1999. 6. 25 ~ 8. 22
The second Parking Lot Project titled No-Parking deals with issues relating to prohibition and censorship that still exists in ordinary life and today's art. This event involves about10 artists, such as Na-young Kim, Sora Kim, Uil Lee, Tae-jun Hyun, Hwal-min Park among others, and holds such events as saxophone performances and comic dialogues.

Project III - HoBuHoHyung
1999. 12. 22 ~ 2000. 1. 30
HoBuHoHyung exhibition, curated by Geum-su Choi, was originally created as a part of the '98 Independent Art Festival before it came to Artsonje. The exhibition attempts to approach mainstream sensitivity of South Korea alongside the Inde-culture, which has been active in other genres, by breaking away from the already-established, fixed ideas with its numerous graphical imaginations.

Projects IV - Soup : Research on Tenacity and Obsession
2000. 3. 17 ~ 5. 14
The artist Bul Lee chose 6 young artists: Sang-gil Kim, Ki-eun Baik, Zie Nam, Han-hyung Yoo, Jinu Sohn, and Jia Chang, to curate a show that falls right in the notion of the Parking Lot Project. Besides food, the word "soup" can connote "deep exploration" and/or "research." Thus, the exhibition depicts aspects on tenacity and obsession, and investigates new possibilities away from the instability of self and subject.

Project V Hyun-mi Yoo : "Fire, Addiction, Wind"
2002. 9. 7 10. 6
By utilizing cold air, fire images, and the fragrance and images of perfumes, Hyun-mi Yoo's installation works provides transitory, surreal experiences by uniting complex yet different
(visual, olfactory, and tactile) sensations together.

Project VI - buffering
2003. 12. 13 ~12. 28
Buffering is a systematic tool used in transmitting and downloading data on internet in order to control the speed level even by absorbing the difference in speed between sender and receiver, and momentarily holding the data in the meantime. That means, buffering, similar to a filter needed to receive something of a more full and dense substance, is in a constant process of 'becoming' something other than itself. The participating artists demonstrate examples of ongoing collaboration, which reflects their much flexible and open attitude to someone else's aesthetic identity, to be put in the context of the exhibition title, an attitude of 'becoming' , that is, an attitude of buffering. The state of becoming is literally a state before reaching the state of 'being' something, and it can enjoy the dual aspects of aiming to reach the state of accomplished, and at the same time, restraining from being too finished.