Day six or whatever

[Written last night]

I am writing this from a bed. And not just any bed: a bed designed by Donald Judd! Okay, not true. But there is a desk by Judd in a room almost directly below me. I am at the previously mentioned new diggs awarded to Power and myself for being classy curators and not dirty artist scum like Jan and Bjørn. Our locale is the Paik Hae Young Gallery in one of the posh areas above Seoul’s tourist-trap Itaewon. It’s a lovely architect-designed building from the 60s, a typical modernist white concrete house in the style of a Mediterrenean villa. I’m in a bed. I guess I must’ve spent more than six nights in a row without sleeping in a bed before, but these last six nights and days feel like a very long time. Not in a bad way, simply in a jam-packed holy shit what the hell is going on here-way. It’s good. Also feeling like a bit of a klasseforræder for being here when Jan and Bjørn are still jimjilbanging.

Today was one of the strangest days so far. First we had the meeting with Ms. Paik, then Jooyoung, Jan, Power and I went to see the new Samsung museum, which was closed, because it was Monday (Hey! How should we know, right? It’s not like any of us are particularly hip to this whole “artworld” business…with its weird rules and regulations). So then we ended up at Ali Baba, an Egyptian restaurant where we had nice falafels, and just okay hummus, and something which was certainly not the tabouleh we ordered but which was still perfectly okay.

Afterwards the others went on various errands. Jan to buy paint and Jooyoung and Power back to the gallery. I decided that it was about time I get down to what I normally spend most of my time doing when I’m in a city that I don’t know, so I took the subway randomly and walked the streets. That is perhaps not entirely true either. I took the subway to Apgujeon, which is the final stop before the fashion district, with several big department stores and many designer shops along a busy street that goes for maybe a couple of kilometres. No trip yet to Hermés, but I might go there tomorrow as I will be slightly better dressed because we’re starting the day with a meet and greet at the Norwegian embassy to thank them for very generously supporting us with money for the airfare for Bjørn, Jan and myself. (Hey, Nikko: thanks for the comment. Great to hear that the Leif Inge-thing should be happening, it’s going to be great!) Anyway, initial impressions, everything a little boring. Mostly just the Europeans labels you would expect. Raf Simons, Costume National, Viktor & Rolf etc. And the big ones of course. One store had a small, but also disappointing Marc Jacobs section. Of the big houses, Prada, Gucci and Louis Vuitton had the most impressive buildings. Prada in a league of its own with a super-sleek, big modernist building that seemed perfect for them. Also been wondering a bit about the fate of Louis Vuitton on account of all the knockoff bags I keep seeing. For some reason they seem to be the main target of fakes, I seem to remember this from Oslo as well, and I would guess that the people who can actually afford the real ones would soon be put off by seeing all these lowlife nobodies everywhere sporting their at one time probably beloved LV. And as a result I would imagine that no one can be interested in buying real ones anymore. I mean, these are people who know how to appreciate a good distinction, so they shouldn’t put up with this crap. Any info here would be great.

I feel like my new, if temporary, living arrangements might result in actually having some kind of surplus of mindpower to actually start writing some serious reflections on just what the hell we’re doing over here. For one thing, I’ve been looking through Per Gunnar Tverbakk’s PROJECT DESCRIPTION for his Ph.D. project at the Art Academy in Oslo and there are definitely certain similarities between his ideas and what we’re doing here. Maybe. But to be honest, reading about his project kind of makes me want to be involved in the production of tangible, sellable product-art. So far my only, not so serious reflectiony, response has been to commission t-shirts for all of us saying “I Went To Korea and All I Did was This Processbased Art Project.”