Friday 6 July 2007

Too much!

If it was possible to take a picture of all the craziness that is going on here at one time I'd do it, but there are just wayyy too many things that happens all at once that a picture could not capture. One thing is the smell from spray paint, the smell from wet wall paint, the crazy people running around and trying to help people but are instead being a bit annoying and then there are also people hurting themselves on falling art pieces... Not forgetting the friendly neighbour who wants to share his music with us. Lionel Richie's "Say You, Say Me" on the highest volume is not quite what I can take at the moment. Will we have an opening here tomorrow? And before that a wild night at Bar Nana? I really don't know... Maybe I'll just escape to the mountain of pillows at the Marriott and leave crazy to crazy before I'll join in the craziness...

The radio show!

Since Bjørn obviously keeps "forgetting" to post a link to the radio show that he participated in on Cheeky Monkey Radio I guess I just have to do it... HERE's the link, go listen immediately guys, to have some kind of impression about what we'll be dancing to tonight at Bar Nana!

From non-hotel to the five star Marriott

An anecdote worth mentioning apropos our never-ending story about lodging during the Seoul-stay occurred upon arrival to the Leeum Samsung Museum opening of the show “Flash Cube” the other day. The man of the hour; the artist Thomas Demand (image of him below) who participated with huge pieces in the show, came up to me and greeted me with a smile on his face and said “Hello Power, rumour has it you moved out of your lodging – it wasn’t to your pleasing I’ve heard?” to which I replied with an astonished “Oh dear, how on earth did you hear about that?” even before I could congratulate him for the show – and he stated quite calmly with a smirk on his face that “Well, the whole town hasn’t been talking about anything else you know, it has been inevitable not to hear about it…”. I guess that the “jimjilbang-trauma” of our little group has now officially entered not only the World Wide Web by the help of our blog, but also into the international art world circuit of gossips.

Now the lives of Erlend, Bjørn and myself has turned upside down as we are now lodged at the Marriott, thanx to the wonderful help of Tae Eun Choi and her friend that works on the Marriott who managed to get us a super great rate at the hotel. I’m now referred to by the desk clerk of the reception as “Mrs Hammer” (not complaining about that - "Mrs Power Hammer"is quite a good name, althoug not as good as "Mrs Power Drill" perhaps, but one cannot have everything) and I am cushioned up with far too many cushions in the largest bed ever made (actually, one would be able to build a fort with the pillows, a thought that has a certain appeal to me… maybe I’ll initiate a pillow war tonight upon the hotel return with my fellow new room-mates Mr Hammer and Mr Hansen…). I’m now quite a happy camper, albeit slightly poorer. What a difference a bed makes.

Seoul Street Art

Quick reminder: Bjørn at Bar Nana tonight



From 23.30 - 01.00 our favourite hatty trickster Bjørn will spin 60% the same records he played when he played there two weeks ago. But since only kollektorskum geeks like himself could even name like half the tracks it shouldn't be a problem and it will all feel new and fresh again. Hope to see as many 195'ers there as possible!

"Hello, this is Jan Christensen, I'm concerned about the toilet."




Just trying to catch up on bloggable tidbits that have hithereto gone unblogged.

Above, for example, is Lina’s explanation of Jan’s attempt to get the staff at the Marriot to fix an unsatisfying non-flushing situation when they were staying there last week.

Last night, unfortunately, there was no swimmingpool as the pool and fitness centre closed at 22. What kind of 5-star is this? Instead spent the night drowning in insane amounts of sheets, after a pretty good late night dinner consisting of tomato and mozarella salad and a red thai vegetable curry delivered to the room. This morning I talked Bjørn and Power out of ordering anything from the, in my opinion, overpriced Marriot breakfast.

In completely unrelated news, I've been very excited that this is finally out and doing its way around your favourite sites and networks of acquring or seeking for music illegally. It's a single by dynamic duo Jay Haze and Ricardo Villalobos and it's absolutely brilliant and easily my favourite release this year. Perhaps only equalled by Âme's "Fiori" from the Berghain/ Staatsballet thing. Up there with earlier Villalobos classics like "Morphunk" etc. Wondering whether I should go to the bootleg opening of Documenta or Ibiza.

Brief skype-chat with Leif Magne Tangen last night. He had just made a big sale at Pierogi, but was still trying to outsource his actual work there by trying to get me to underwrite his next press release for him. Jan entertained throughout the chat by amazing us all with his remarkable skype formations.

The "experimental factory/ flexible space" bit from my former post is a teaser from what should hopefully be the most thorough piece of theoretical reflection from me on this whole process, which should be written at some point soon hopefully, and which might take as its starting point a few ideas from Liam Gillick's five-day seminar at United Nations Plaza in May. It's connected to the ideal/ myth of hyperflexibility that surrounds those involved in the artworld and its relation to non-material labour and similar such fascinating ideas.

Also somewhat related to this, while enjoying a cab ride to Itaewon the other night, Bjørn and I passed what looked like the workers taking control of the means of production. There is a big construction site where people are constantly protesting against what looks like new, fancy apartment buildings in an otherwise lowbuilt and oldfashioned area. This day three people had climbed ontop of a big crane and were pumping their fists in sync with their comrades down on the ground. This made me very happy, but also ashamed to be non-flat structuring my way across town within the bourgeois comforts of the much too cheap cab.

Possibly that same day, on the way from Itaewon so that Bjørn could buy som fresh clothes, we met a very friendly cab driver who spoke very good English and told us about his son who was in the navy, showed us his saved boarding pass from a fjord-cruise he had done in New Zealand.

Right now some people are arguing outside our gallery, at the bus stop, we don't know about what, but now the cops arrived too. Jan tells us that the other day he witnessed a fight between the paint shop guy and his pizza place neighbour. Finally some action.

Also, the Hyuindai dept store in Apgujeong apparently openend a new Marc by Marc Jacobs store yesterday, so I'm off there later as I need some jeans, and maybe a jacket or something.

The Bricks Have Arrived


working!




moroccan restaurant_itaewon




edit by Erlend: To the right of Jan and Lina we see here the Iranian artist Roxana Manouchehri who is currently doing a residency at Changdong and Goyang, and Ann(e?) who works for the Melbourne Art Fair.