Two days after the pre-opening of great we can have the stinking factory maybe we can turn it into a flexible space!

So, the day we went to Hermés I wrote this long, insightful post for the blog in Word when I got back to the hotel later that night. Then, the following morning, when about to start putting it online, I failed to save the file and everything was lost. Which was kind of annoying. And ever since I have had total writer's block and the blog has seemed a very hostile environment, not least

It was mostly about the Atelier Hermés and the Korean Hermés award which is an annual thing where. It was also about how I had a nice big day of metrosexual fun. I bought a tie at Hermés, a couple of polo-shirts (not at Hermés), picked up the latest issue of GQ Magazine, drank various kinds of iced coffee and imported water, later in the evening Bjørn ate at McDonalds again (they have a quadruple burger there btw, I wonder if that's normal now, or if this is some kind of special at restaurants close to American army facilities.) The Itaewon hotel btw had some kind of special television circuit so that on CNN all the ads were more like public service announcements directed at American soldiers. Lots of info on how to know if your child is depressed, the importance of excercise and where to sit in airplanes to have better chance of surviving a crash/ bomb/ terrorist incident etc. Very funny stuff.

Okay, a couple of things I remember from my earlier, now long-deleted post:

- Seeing a girl on the street wearing baby blue Wellingtons with pink polka dots.

- Hermés ties being a good 35% more expensive here than back home. But found one that I couldn't find in Berlin, so still very much worth it.

In more recent news; westerday we went to the opening of Flash Cube, an exhibition at Samsung Leeum curated by Henk Schlager. More about this later. I had a conversation with an American artist where I mentioned my distaste for photography of architecture and suggested that it might be a good idea to put a two year ban on this kind of art. She laughed in a funny way, as did her French side-kick, whose image can be seen in a couple of places further down, from our adventures at the karaoke bar two days ago. I asked if she perhaps happened to be working primarily with photography of architecture, something which she then confirmed.

Today: Moved into the Marriott. Very nice, but not helpful to our illusion of flat structure. Also not helpful to my socialdemocratic desire to limit taxi rides and use more public transportation. Taxis here are way too cheap for somewhere that is apparently the third most polluted place on the planet. Okay, screw this. Power and I are off to the Marriot. Power is going to take a long shower. I will go for a swim in the pool. An hour and a half away from having gone my second day so far this trip without having a drink.

Yogiyooo!

Bjørn is the Scandinavian group's relational pilot when it comes to the Korean language - he is studying hard and is practising as much as possible when ever there is a moment over. There is one word however that all of the Scandinavians have picked up in Korean without any ado and it is as funny to say as "Banga Banga" (which is spelled a little different and means "Nice to have met you" if you are in the age between 5 and 10). I have no clue to how the word we all by now know is spelled, but the word sounds like "YOGIYOOO" and can be heard pretty much everywhere. It means something in the line of "Hey" and "listen up" - a call for attention really. It's rather useful in fact. "Yogioo - please hand me that pen over there, will you?".

After Dark Karaoke Male Bonding

Soo-Jung Choi knitting with pencils

Neolook photos/Quick collage

invitation card_final

after pre_opening

The day before the pre-opening!

[info] a party of desingner zinoo park

hi, there. i've got a mail from zinoo park who is a friend of mine n designer. he's having a party this friday at 20 near shinsadong at his new office. i know bjorn's gonna play that night at barnana but before then we could join his party and mingle with other designers and creators..

what do you think?

here's his HP
http://www.zinoopark.com/

i love this!

drawn by haeryon n others..

tampon_tempo_playtex?

pre-opening images

double DJ?!
jambong & haeryon(look at his T-shirts written 'a new mind')
limmy&chansik(basist)
eunji is posting a poster
from outside view
party!
jinjoo&sujung
what is that?
jangjunghee under the limmy's
let's do yeonhee-dong national gymnastic by eunji cho
it was fun!!!

Lots of photos coming soon

I have been completely offline for 3 days, just painting and working, not even checking my email, but I will be back tomorrow and I have lots of photos to upload. Check back very soon ;)

Just want to thank everybody for coming to the pre-opening party and chat last night, it was an amazing evening. We all love Seoul more and more every day!

images from pre-opening

Pre-opening

The pre-opening was directed by DJ Jan who decided to stay behind the DJ-booth all night to ensure that his disciples (the disciples are us; the Stepfordized mini-jans) were out there taking good care of the guests. Our job: first to ask people if we could offer them a drink/fill up their cup and then directly move on to ask who they were and then explain the project to them - spreading the word of the project. The visitors were many actually. A great deal of many interconnections happened and more people were added into the project. One lady, So Yeon Park who grew up in the house next to the project space showed up to the opening and it turned out that she has been living in the US for the past 8 years and moved back here on the 21st of June (the very same date we also arrived). She knows the area very well and has seen us working day and night in the space with an increasing curiosity about what the f... is going on in here and been wanting to ask but for some reason she didn't yet. She is an artist and been working as a professor at the School of Fine Arts in Kansas and now she's going to live in Seoul. She was immediately invited to our project. Today I found her in the space having lunch when I got here, so I hope that means that she'll spend more time here and with us.

Well, there were more stories like this, new people introduced, curators, students, people from the neighbourhood, artists from different residency programs around and more. Some dancing, some drinking, some serious working and some very serious networking was done. Then a drink pit-stop and later Karaoke at Prince Edwards with Ballantine's as a partner.

Pre-opening and post-karaoke

Mama Houswife

The nightly talk before bed yesterday between Jooyoung and me was about the hardships of being a curator or organizer. Jooyoung is an artist and is not particularly fond of the downsides of taking on the role of the curator when artists, whom happen to be your friends too, make a mess or don't make anything at all or expect too much from the organizer and making sure no artist feel neglected or left out. I told her that I some years ago read a text written by a female curator who shared her experiences.

Basically she wrote about the fact that a curator takes on many different roles, and leaving the obvious things aside like being able to build walls, arrange transports, insurance etc, she was instead touching the topic about the personal relationships that quite naturally happen between curator and artist. The (female) curator turns into the grand-mother, mother, sister, best friend, partner, psychiatrist and mistress (and sometimes when the curator is co-producer and maybe even initiator of certain work, she turns into the delivery nurse or in some cases even mother of their "child" i.e. the art piece). This is inherent in the very nature of the relationship in a weird way. It is also very stressful.

I know the different roles by now pretty good why I am extremely content to in this project take (and actually really being able to) the back-seat, watch, learn, observe and at times try to calculate where my help is needed and make short interactions. Yesterday night in the project space there was a lot of activity as you can tell from the huge amount of documentation images from last night posted here on the blog. I couldn't work as in writing texts about artists or art. Neither could Erlend who was the first to take responsibility and leave the place. I stayed on and turned into the DJ of the night.

What is evident, and what was the main topic of mine and Jooyoung's conversation was that this time around and in this project - even though there are no "obvious" mama-curator around here (although we all are in a way) things are moving on quite smooth considering all the obstacles we have to endure (living on top of each other, no-sleeping, very simple arrangements in the gallery, no tool-box, hot humidity, monsoon rains, strong personalities around, no-budget, communication troubles yada yada yada) every one takes his' or her's responsibility and works with a smile on their face. It is evident that the reason for this is a hell of a great group dynamic. I've been through some "flat structures" before in my life that turned into the worst hell you would ever imagine (Villa Medusa is another TV-series I'd like to bring into the pot of TV-series references on this blog). We all like each other and respect the work of the other's why we (still) are having a great time together! This is most likely a new record too!

Today I'm taking some me-time at Jooyoung's, washing Jan's, mine and Jooyoung's clothes, doing dishes and writing this blogpost as well as doing some other stuff that needs to be done like ironing. I'm the house wife of today. But I will also of course get ready for this night's pre-opening and karaoke too! Can't wait!