ARK Talks magazine, issue #2 - Summer 2024

Featuring an editorial by So Yeon Jung, an essay by Victoria Stepanets, a review by Asja Skatchinski, an essay by Paul Chan, an interview with Capser by Victoria Stepanets, an essay by Yuna Goda, an interview with Junko Mori by Victoria Stepanets, an essay by Connor Dillman and a gallery of artworks by Dolores Mavridou, Jing Tsui, Mathijs Hunfeld, Rose Antony, Seohyun Oh, Shifeng Zhang, Sophie-Louise and Lujane Vaqar Pagganwala

From Offprint London in May 2024.

The ARKTalks magazine took part in the Offprint event held from 17th to 19th May 2024 at Tate gallery in London. The event featured independent, experimental and socially-engaged publishers in the fields of arts, architecture, design, humanities, and visual culture. Offprint is LUMA Foundation’s platform that supports quality and unique publishing practices specific to the arts.

Turbine Hall, Tate Modern.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

4 Editorial by Soyeon Jung

5 Art can(not) be defined by Victoria Stepanets

6 Biennale Arte 2024, Foreigners Everywhere by Asja Skatchinski

11 On Fabricating Reality by Yuna Goda

14 There Are Much More Interesting Beyond The Popular: Interview with Junko Mori by Victoria Stepanets

18 ARK News

20 Politics of White Walls by Paul Chan

22 Success is about movement: Interview with Casper Dillen by Victoria Stepanets

26 On Letters by Connor Dillman

ARK Gallery

30 Dolores Mavridou

32 Jing Tsui

34 Mathijs Hunfeld

36 Rose Antony

38 Seohyun Oh

40 Shifeng Zhang

42 Sophie-Louise

44 Lujane Vaqar Pagganwala

by Soyeon Jung

Martin Creed who later went on to say that “Art is shit. Art galleries are toilets. Curators are toilet attendants. Artists are bullshitters”1, won the prestigious Turner Prize in 2001 for his Work No.227: The Lights Going On and Off. Critics derided it as “dumb”, and it infuriated the British public. This couldn’t capture more accurately the absurdity of the contemporary art scene. An artist who later makes a provocative remark about the nonsensical nature of contemporary art wins one of its highest accolades while consequently becoming controversial amongst both art experts and the general public alike.

As such, art is constantly challenged to defend its value against a population that not only dismisses but often actively attacks it. At times, art succumbs to its own scepticism and the need to reinvent itself according to prevailing trends. This irony highlights the challenges artists and curators face in a context where art cannot escape the capitalist system. The commodification of art frequently clashes with its integrity, creating a dynamic and sometimes contentious landscape.

ArkTalks takes on the infinitely tricky challenge of responding to this contentious landscape of contemporary art. Compact yet dense, this issue probes contemporary art from multiple angles. We examine institutional trends that forge and simultaneously reflect the contemporary art scene through a critical review on this year’s Venice Biennale; revisit scholarly arguments on evaluating art to offer insights in viewing contemporary works; trace the histories of art exhibiting spaces and transformations that reflect the broader changes in the art scene; deliver live conversations with practising artists to ask away questions on their conceptual investigation. Furthermore, we present personal reflectives to expand on what art could potentially be.

While art has historically pursued specific goals fitted to its own times, the conditions have changed and art has adapted to this new climate. In an era where art no longer solely records history or serves as propaganda, it has become a medium for engaging with the complexities of contemporary society, tackling themes of identity, politics, and social justice. This evolving role necessitates a continuous redefinition of what art is and what it can be. Critical essays and interviews in this issue, together with ARK Gallery’s presentation of works by RCA students and the intimate stories behind their works, collectively form an archive of contemporary thoughts, ultimately, shaping contemporary art.

1 Martin Creed. (2014). Foreword. In Martin Creed: Works (Reprint ed.). Thames & Hudson.

Art can(not) be defined

Today, art impresses us with its diverse nature of applied techniques and subjects. It has reached a level of democratisation where anyone can create and present even the most unconventional works. However, such a wide range of art gradually blurs the concept of ‘art’ itself: if everything can be art, does Art still exist?

An art historian Ernst Gombrich argued that all creative activities can be called art “as long as we realise that Art with a capital A has no existence.” If we assume that he is right, then there are no differences between the works of an art student and of a Renaissance master. Both of them are just ‘art’.

An art educator Kenneth M.Lansing is convinced that art should be defined and asks her readers to “consider, for example, the fix that teachers of aeronautical engineering would be in if they didn’t know what an airplane was.” In raising the necessity to rethink the concept of art today, Lansing highlighted the significant difference between meaningful works of representational art and ‘decorative’ abstract work, stressing that the former should be the primary focus of art education.

An independent scholar and art critic Michelle Marder Kamhi shared the same opinion, mentioning that “the notion of blurring the boundaries pervades the contemporary artworld. Virtually every prior distinction – from that between the fine and decorative arts, or crafts, to that between art and life itself – has been rejected.” In her view, “the breakdown of distinctions has resulted in total incoherence – both in artistic practice and in writing and thinking about art, and hence in art education.”

Disturbed by the indifference to, or rejection of, definitions of art in art education, Kenneth M.Lansing insisted that art “can and must be defined if we are to make any sense of what we do in the classroom.” Lansing suggested his definition of art as follows: “Visual art is the skillful presentation of concepts and/

or emotions (ideas and feelings) in a form that is structurally (compositionally) satisfying and coherent.” This definition connects the skillful process to the finished product called a work of art. “That is because I don’t believe they can be separated”, Lansing said. This is a starting point that should be emphasised. In our time of conceptual art, one gets the impression that skill and form take second or even third place. They become unimportant – often neglected, compensating with the deep meaning of the work – but can there be depth without skillfulness?

According to a British art critic John Ruskin, “all art worthy of the name is energy”. Notably, a German philosopher Immanuel Kant also mentioned ‘spirit’ and ‘aesthetic idea’ as important elements of art; however, they both agreed that these alone are not sufficient for defining art. John Ruskin believed that true Art should embody professional skills and involve all the noble emotions. While the first element clearly means the highest level of skills, the second raises questions about how to assess the degree of an artwork’s energy. According to Ruskin, the power of art can only be revealed through the most appropriate selection of materials that is “capable of receiving and retaining the influence of the subtlest touch of the human hand”. He concluded that an artist’s work remains banal until the chosen material reveals its distinctive qualities. Given above, the energy of art is not about intangible traits which are hard to assess, but about an atmosphere which can be reached exclusively through every material medium.

In 2021, a group of Italian artists made a replica of Michelangelo’s statue of David using a 3D printer, plastic material and marble dust. If everything is art and the material does not matter, a plastic printed David would be of the same importance as the original marble masterpiece. “Art cannot be defined”, they say. Just ask yourself - for whom is it so beneficial to blur these boundaries?

Bibliography:

1. Danto, Arthur, What art is, (CPI Group Ltd, 2013) 2. Gombrich, Ernst, The story of art, (Phaidon Press Limited, 2021) 3. Kenneth M. Lansing, Why we need a definition of Art, https:// www.aristos.org/aris-04/lansing1.htm#*Note 4. Morris, William, Art, Wealth and Riches, (Renard Press Ltd, 2022) 5. Michelle Marder Kamhi, Kenneth M. Lansing, 1925–2022: A Voice in the Wilderness of Art Education, https://www.mmkamhi.com/2023/02/14/kenneth-m-lansing-1925-2022/ Michelle Marder Kamhi, The lamentable consequences of blurring the boundaries, https://www.mmkamhi.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/The-lamentable-consequences-of-blurring-the-boundaries.pdf 6. Ruskin, John, On art and life, (Penguin books Ltd, 2004)

Venice Biennale 2024,

Foreigners Everywhere

by Asja Skatchinski

The End of Art

As I finished walking through the exhibition spaces of the Giardini and the Arsenale at the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale, Foreigners Everywhere, an intrusive doubt got stuck in my head: is art dead?

In considering the essence of art, it comes natural to put this question in relation with the work of the art critic and philosopher Arthur Danto, who dedicated his career to defining what art is. His journey began similarly with a visit to an exhibition — Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes at the Stable Gallery in New York in 1964. This show prompted Danto to ask a similar question: «has art ended?» It took Danto 20 years to fully answer this, first with his Artworld theory in 1964 and later with his seminal essay ‘The End of Art’ in 1984.

Danto’s insight lies in the realisation that the essence of art isn’t confined to any particular form, medium, or style. This understanding crystallised with Warhol’s Brillo Boxes, which blurred the lines between art and non-art by presenting a commercial product as legitimate art. This signalled the end of a chronological narrative where art was seen as progressing towards a mimetic relationship with reality. Instead, art became self-actualized within its own philosophy. With the cessation of objective quality properties, Danto argued that for something to be considered art, it must be recognized as such within the context of the Artworld — a cultural and social framework including artists, critics, curators, and institutions. Danto’s End of Art does not imply that art has ceased to exist but that it has reached a stage where it is no longer constrained by historical progress or a specific narrative. This end marks the conclusion of art’s linear historical progression, where the persistent question of What is art? is answered by the recognition that anything can be art, leading to a post-historical period characterised by pluralism.

A Tangible Death

The caustic question that arose during my visit to the Venice Biennale 2024 can be firstly justified by concrete data: 55% of the artists featured in the Central Pavilion at the Giardini and the Arsenale are deceased. This surpasses the already high percentage of deceased artists in Cecilia Alemani’s The Milk of Dreams in 2022, which was around 50%. In Adriano Pedrosa’s edition, even among the minority of living artists, many works were created in the last century, transforming what is supposed to be the world’s biggest contemporary art manifestation into something more akin to a 1900’s mausoleum.

Foreigners Everywhere comprises two sections: the Nucleo Contemporaneo and the Nucleo Storico, both showcasing traditionally underrepresented artists — whether queer, folk, or indigenous. The latter section focuses on 20th-century art from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, conceived as “an essay, a draft, a speculative curatorial exercise that seeks to question the boundaries and definitions of modernism”1 in relation to the Global South. The phenomenon of “time capsules” can be traced back to the previous edition, The Milk of Dreams, drawing a parallel between the two post-COVID Biennales. This suggests a growing interest in rewriting the past rather than engaging with the present, a tendency that reaches its culmination in Foreigners Everywhere. This vision contrasts starkly with Danto’s post-historical era, where art is inherently inscribed in its historical narrative.

1 La Biennale di Venezia, «Biennale Arte 2024: Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere», accessed July 4, 2024, https://www.labiennale.org/en/news/biennale-arte-2024-stranieri-ovunque-foreigners-everywhere.

Crystallised

in Time and Personal History

Another glaring issue making the Biennale feel dated, if not dead, is its staging. Walking through the Corderie dell’Arsenale, one notices an almost perfectly symmetrical succession of tapestries on the right and native paintings on the left. This regularity is occasionally interrupted by installations and experimental set designs but ultimately results in a monotonous picture gallery[1].

The Corderie feels dull not only by their redundant juxtaposition of medium, but also in their content. Foreigners Everywhere gives voice to foreigners as outsiders and explores the etymological roots of terms like «strange», «strangers», «extraños», and «étrangers». These terms are linked to the concept of «queer», which fundamentally means different, unusual, or strange. Immigrants, emigrants, refugees, expatriates, trans and non-binary individuals, popular artists, outsiders, and indigenous subjects — often treated as foreigners in their own lands — but the criterias adopted to put them together seem at times superficial and didascalic and this complexity and plurality often seem reduced to a biographical data. The Venice Biennale’s affection for history doesn’t stop in its chronology but extends in its personal sense. The biographical data is stressed and re-stressed by Adriano Pedrosa, firstly staring from his press conference, where the curator managed to find the time to list every country of origin of the artists exhibiting (and we are talking about several minutes straight), but was incapable of providing almost any relevant details about their practice or how

they intersect with each other. It seems to suggest that their most interesting feature is the country’s name on their passport and the fact that they are artists from the global south exhibiting for the first time in Venice.

Biography remains in the spotlight throughout the Biennale, where such captions not only provide the audience with irrelevant information about the artist’s life but also contribute to creating weak curatorial concepts: a perfect example of this being the Italians Everywhere section.

This section, part of the Nucleo Storico at the Arsenale, as per title, aims to exhibit works of Italian artists who worked and lived abroad. The artists, each characterised by distinct styles and content, as the explanation panel notes, “left Italy for various reasons” — sometimes for political motivations diametrically opposed to each other. However, they are all grouped together based on their biographical data as the only curatorial connector. The same method is applied in the display: the glass panels designed by Lina Bo Bardi on which the artworks are exhibited[2].

With little thought on how they interact with the venue (they were originally conceived for the MASP, a space with much different spatial characteristics than the Corderie), the exhibitors are chosen, again, starting from a biographical criteria: They were designed by an Italian woman living abroad.

[1] Installation view of the right wall in Corderie dell’Arsenale at Venice Biennale 2024 featuring Salman Toor’s painting. Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

[2] Installation view of Italians Everywhere in the Corderie dell’Arsenale at Venice Biennale 2024. Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

An Identification in Politics, Rather Than Philosophy

If Adriano Pedrosa’s choice of giving visibility to lesser-known artists, many exhibiting at the Biennale for the first time, is deemed admirable, it’s also worth underlining that choosing less famous artists can be risky. The hazard is mitigated by the overwhelming prevalence of forms and characters of the past century, which already seem ingrained in the artistic panorama, and strike as extremely digestible rather than subversive.

The latest Biennale follows a sentiment, anticipated by The Milk of Dreams, but broadly and previously felt by many major western institutions, of creating a more equitable and inclusive art history and art panorama. Those aims find their basis in an even broader interest and attention in identity politics, a driving force that seems to have become the catalyst of art itself. In an art world that, as stated before, has lost any relationship with objective quality and a sense of progression, it seems like the art and philosophy that before justified art as such, have been substituted by identity and political theory.

Art has often been the mouthpiece of political topics, but we seem to be witnessing an era where the sole criteria of agglomeration becomes a political vision, where art has become the manifestation of politics and identity.

As we delve into this direction, it’s worth questioning whether this change, along with its content, should also extend to its container: broadly, the museum, but also the Biennale itself. The museum was created in the 18th century to showcase European art and power and has remained fundamentally unchanged in structure. The Venice Biennale, even more evidently, is a material representation of 19th-century European dominance, which in recent years has become an inevitable friction point with the equitable image that the Biennale wants to portray for itself.

An inkling of this insufference can be sensed in the heart of the Giardini. The imposing fronts of the French, United Kingdom and German pavilions, facing each other, which represent the Eurocentric power structure, have all been obscured, the first two by giant screens, and the latter by a pile of debris. In the last two cases, the entrance has been redirected to the back of the building.

An Apocalyptic Sentiment: National Pavilions and Beyond the Biennale

It is also in walking away from the Central Pavilions that less literal and didascalic interpretations of Foreigners Everywhere can be found. Some interpretations that are surprisingly still relating to the sentiment of death, but stems from a tumultuous relationship with the present rather than from a symbiotic relationship with the past.

For THRESHOLDS, the project representing Germany this year, Ersan Mondtag covered the entrance with soil from Anatolia, where his grandfather, Hasan Aygun, was born and created inside of the pavilion a three-story structure. Both the entrance installation and the three-storied structure are titled Monument to an Unknown Man and dedicated to Hasan Aygun, who moved to Germany in 1968 as a guest worker and later died from cancer due to working in an asbestos factory, a post-industrial landscape conceived as a trace German economic miracle in the second half of the last century. The main set, a multistory installation with a spiral staircase located in the pavilion’s central room[3], offers a voyeuristic view of an abandoned stage habitation where “realistic details are mixed with invented elements and stories from other biographies”2 and the traces of a semi-fictional human life are intended to leave the “visitors to the German pavilion in suspense of forgotten hopes”.

The 2024 German Pavilion echoes the thematic and visual elements of the 59th Biennale’s Italian Pavilion, History of Night and Destiny of Comets by Gian Maria Tosatti, which depicted the rise and fall of Italy’s industrial golden age through a giant, abandoned warehouse[4]. Both installations leave spectators with a sense of discomfort, when confronted with the decline of human presence and the remnants of past achievements.

Further embodying this apocalyptic sentiment and aesthetic are two exhibitions outside the official Biennale, integral to Venice’s contemporary art scene. Liminal, Pierre Huyghe’s solo exhibition at Punta della Dogana, unfolds as a transitional space between human and non-human. Key works include Camata[5], a video of machines performing a ritual on a human skeleton in the Atacama Desert, and Liminal, a video of a woman with a void in place of her

[3] Performance at Ersan Mondtag’s “Monument to an Unknown Man”.

Photo: Thomas Turin

2 Ersan Mondtag, «Monument of an Unknown Man,» accessed July 4, 2024,

[4] Installation view of Gian Maria Tosatti’s Historia of Nights and Destinations of Comets, Italian Pavilion at Venice Biennale 2022. Curated by Eugenio Viola. Images courtesy La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by Andrea Avezzù

[5] Still from Huyghe’s film Camata (2024)

face. Other notable pieces are Human Mask, showing a monkey in a human mask and wig in a deserted Fukushima restaurant, reflecting on anthropomorphization and species boundaries, and Petite Mort, a basalt cast of a pregnant belly with human tumour cell cultures, illustrating the continuum of genesis and death.

Huyghe’s deeply layered exhibition transitions seamlessly from the particular to the existential, encapsulating birth, sex, and death in a circular narrative, emphasising an eternal present.

The installation Monte di Pietà[6] conceived by artist Christoph Büchel at Fondazione Prada explores Eurocentric roots with an accumulative language. Located in the luxurious Ca’ Corner della Regina building, once a pawn shop, the installation centres on the concept of debt. It presents everyday objects—washing machines, camp beds, wheelchairs—mixed with over a hundred loans from renowned museums, including works by Titian, Warhol, and Duchamp, as well as historical artefacts like slave handcuffs and colonial symbols.

At first glance, the installation appears gloomy and melancholic, reflecting on contemporary existence and Venice’s decayed past. It offers a brutal commentary on today’s Europe, depicted as an old, overwhelmed continent unable to uphold individual freedom within a welfare society. The installation incorporates historical and contemporary art, creating a complex narrative about decolonization and history.

The remnants of a previous society that has reached or is reaching its culmination, Europe and its hegemonic colonial past are symbolised by abandoned buildings and piles of waste-like objects. This post-human landscape, the leftovers of a civilization, is the perfect incarnation of an apocalyptic sentiment and aesthetic.

In an era characterised by uncertainties about the future, where Arthur Danto saw the postmodern as the end of movements and artistic tendencies, one can argue that a particular aesthetic and communality emerged within postmodernism, becoming a tendency itself. This vision of a world on the edge of humanity reveals a pre-death yet extremely animate sentiment, where the whole postwestern centric world can recognize itself rather than be divided by national belonging. In its unique relationship with death, art unveils itself as extremely powerful and alive.

[6] Installation view of Christoph Büchel’s Monte di Pietà, Fondazione Prada, Venice. Courtesy of Fondazione Prada, Photo: Marco Cappelletti

On Fabricating Reality

A Short Essay by Yuna

Goda

‘We also remember the things that never really happened.’ – A comment by Shuji Terayama1

Is art only a fabrication of reality?

When I saw the film Pastoral: To Die in The Country2, I sweated with discomfort. It was too close to my image of Japan—as the countryside of the Eurocentric world, the hometown of my life, and the lukewarm nostalgia hiding in my past.

I never grew up in the countryside. I spent most of my life in Chiba; a downtown city in Japan, located about an hour away from Tokyo. World War II was already a past by the time I was born, and my family unconsciously mixed English words in daily conversations. My life had no overlaps with Terayama’s film setting in the pastoral fields of post-war Aomori. So, despite it being shot in Japan, almost none of the visual elements should have recalled my past. And yet, I thought I knew every single bit of it. The experience of the film was a deja vu, not a new catharsis I adventured through fiction.

Pastoral: To Die in the Country is a film directed by Shuji Terayama, 1974. The first half of the film narrates the story of a teenage boy scheming to ‘elope’ from an old-fashioned town in the rural areas of Aomori, with his beautiful neighbor who is a wife to a rich husband. However, about mid-way through the film, a metafictional reveal exposes that this was an auto-fictional film-in-progress created by the true main protagonist: a film director. The boy was the director’s younger self, retold through his idealized film about childhood. Soon after, the director becomes lost in the past—this time no longer idealized, and more harshly revealing his traumatic experiences as a child.

Eerie motifs are dispersed throughout the film: broken clocks, people in white face paint, necromancers, psychic rituals, circus performers, and a place called ‘Mt.Fear’. The psychedelic visuals transition restlessly, overwhelming the audience as if in a fever dream. However, the pastoral landscapes paint a gentle, nostalgic feeling in the background of the film. And despite the surrealism, the presence of soldiers and hints of recession tie the film back to its historical context in post-war Japan. Mt.Fear is also an existing place in Aomori; 恐山 (Osore-zan); a buddhist sacred ground currently open for site-seeing. The film is a collage sequence of reality and dreams.

When I first watched this film, I was with Kaisa, Bart, and Noé. Kaisa Saarinen and Bart Seng Wen Long were the two organizers of a screening event celebrating the 50th anniversary of the film Pastoral: To Die in the Country at the ICA. They invited me and Noé Iwai to become part of a live performance that was planned to take place as a new preface to the film. And to help us learn more about Terayama’s works, Kaisa arranged a movie night at her flat, where the four of us watched the film on her couch.

‘It reminded me of my hometown,’ said Noé, who sat next to me. ‘Where I come from in Japan, really looked like this…’

It felt natural that the film overlapped with Noé’s memory of their childhood. Before coming to London, they lived in the rural areas of Kumamoto and Chiba, Japan. Perhaps life in a Japanese countryside had already existed in Noé, without being newly inscribed by the film.

‘This film is so interesting because each time I watch, I find something new,’ said Kaisa. I wondered how real the film felt to Kaisa and Bart. Both of them being non-Japanese people, but knowing so thoroughly about Japanese culture, they could have similarly found an extent of reality within the fictional landscape. However, having never lived in a pastoral area in Japan, neither Kaisa, Bart, nor I should have been able to relate to the characters’ lives as closely as Noé.

But what is real? I thought in my mind. Anyways, the film was fictional. Whether or not anyone had lived in the same time, place, or situation as the film, no one could have experienced anything identical to Shuji Terayama’s plot. In fact, the deeply surreal film was set in a time where neither of us were born. Then how did I know this place I’ve never been, and this boy that I never met? ***

When I was fourteen, I used to dream frequently about a teenage boy being run over by a train. In the dream, the accident had already happened, and I was always floating in the air, overlooking a crowd of people gathering around the boy’s dead body. No one seemed to realize my existence, but I somehow knew that it was me

lying in the train tracks. I was the boy, in his black school uniform, strangely unable to go back into his body. I liked to believe that the dream was the last memory from my previous life. Myself as a boy looked just like the boy in Pastoral: To Die in the Country, if only his face wasn’t painted white.

Shuji Terayama frequently wrote about his non-existent brother. Many of Terayama’s works align with his true life experiences in Aomori. And since his poetries and films were so auto-biographical, he had been accused of “fabricating realities” when he wrote about this brother that he never really had.

Seeing his works through the contemporary frameworks of art, they would most likely be categorized as auto-fiction, as they clearly combine fictional narratives and personal experience. In this case, it is rather nonsensical to question the artist why they embed “fabricated” facts within their works. The storyline does not need to be fully factual in order for the piece to be personal to the artist.

However, Terayama offers a more phenomenological explanation to rebut this accusation.

‘Experience and sense of reality are not the same. While some “real feelings” derive from “real experiences”. (...) things I have experienced include, for example, the summer in the film Taiyou ga ippai and the summer in some book I read. All in all, I have already experienced thousands of summers. They are real to me.’3

Rather than validating the existence of the ‘unreal’ within art works, he argued that fiction itself could be ‘real’ if it offers such a realistic experience. Perhaps in his mind, his brother was ‘real’. Maybe he had, in fact, never fabricated anything, but had been documenting his memories of his brother. In Terayama’s definition, the entirety of his work is real, and seeing art is experiencing reality.

studying my masters at an art college. There, for the first time in London, I met a Japanese full-time lecturer. ‘I became tired of that country, Japan,’ she laughed. ‘They completely abused me as a female academic. It’s not easy to live in London as an East-Asian, but my life is better here than suffering in Tokyo. I escaped Japan, and I’m not going back.’ Still, Japan remains my hometown. Japan is where all my childhood memories took place, and my friends await. I have less desire to live there today, but I couldn’t hate the country either. If it were a person, I couldn’t kill it, because it was also my parent.

My plan to stay in the UK is now challenged by visa administrations, and the difficulty of finding full-time jobs. I flinched when the boy failed his elopement from his rural hometown, and discovered that his beautiful neighbor wasn’t as generous as he had imagined her to be. I wanted to deny the possibility that I am close to failing my elopement from Tokyo to London with my beautiful pursuit of art.

On a night crows cry | wrap her not in green | but a crimson kimono | hoist a rope around her | and give her one good push | she snores loudly | cradling the altar | I long for the horizon

A year passes yet | mother will not die | two year pass and yet | mother dies not | 三年経てども | 母死なず | 四年経てど も | 母死なぬ | five years pass and yet | mother will not die | ten years have passed | the ships sail away | a hundred years have passed | railroads disappear | a thousand years pass | the mugwort withers | mother will not die | ten thousand years pass and yet | ねんねんころり | ねんころり | ねんねんころころ | 皆殺し

– Excerpts from Shuji Terayama’s poetry collection4 , partially translated in English and assembled into a performance by Kaisa Saarinen

I always experienced Japan as the countryside of the Eurocentric world, a rural area that strictly follows traditions, worships the past, and polishes altars. Even before watching Pastoral: To Die in the Country, I had known the ‘country’ deeply.

‘Japan is always five years behind,’ my Japanese teachers told me at high school. ‘If you want to study something contemporary, you must learn English and travel abroad.’ I was taught that Japan is an outdated country, printed as a tiny island on the far East edge of the world map. That was not why I preferred studying in London rather than in Tokyo, but my parents were very proud when I told them I wanted to study abroad. I was sixteen. I turned nineteen as I moved to the UK. After four years, I graduated university, and started

At the event, I read from Kaisa’s assemblage of Terayama’s poetry, alongside two other readers: Lila Matsumoto and Alan Fielden. Noé performed throughout our reading, and Bart’s video collage played on the back screen. The performance took place just before the screening of the film; giving it a new preface for the visitors at the ICA.

Half of my face was smeared with clown white face paint, signifying how the poetry readers were partially embedded within the fiction of Terayama’s film, but partially in reality, as we existed on stage in real time. In one scene of Pastoral: To Die in the Country, the director says: ‘I can’t write without objectifying myself, the scenery, everything - it all turns into a cheap spectacle, slathered in stage makeup.’ From this we theorized that fictionalized characters are painted white in the film, whilst others are either real or truthfully portrayed.

3 Horie, Sh ū ji, 寺山修司の 1960 年代：不可分の精神 [Sh ū ji Terayama of the 1960s: The Spirit of Indivisible ], 1st edition (Hakusui-sha, 2020)

4 Terayama, Sh ū ji, 寺山修司全歌集 [ Sh ū ji Terayama Complete Poetry Collection ], 13th edition (K ō dansha, 2020)

By the day of the performance, I had watched the film multiple times. The first few replays fed my own curiosity, but otherwise rewatched it in the process of assisting Kaisa’s subtitling. Since I had to replay specific scenes far more times than the rest of the film, my memories of the story no longer aligned with the chronology of the plot. They were twisted and fragmented, as if a section of my older memories from my childhood in Chiba. The boundary between fiction and memory had faded away—I would some day remember sections of the film as part of my own life that I told many times to people, and dreamt many times about.

To me, the face paint functioned like the frame to a painting, or a pedestal to a sculpture. It clarified to myself and the audience that I was part of a performance, instead of being lost on stage in ICA Cinema 1. I had already lost the distinction between the real and fictional, so what divided me and Terayama’s auto-fiction was the setting of the stage. Art was no longer a fabrication of the real, but one framed version of it.

There Are Much More Interesting Beyond The Popular.

Interview with Junko Mori by Victoria Stepanets

Continuing the main topic of this iteration – Defining Art – we have met with a Japanese artist Junko Mori who currently lives in the UK. The peculiarity of her works is the great attention to detail, and the repetition of them; each treated with maximum professionalism. This can be seen in one of her works, Propagation Project; Ring of Small Petals, currently in the collection of the British Museum in London. The artist shares how the process of repeating every detail, and the polishing of the technique is an integral part of professional art.

ArkTalks: The first question I want to ask you – how would you describe ‘art’ in terms of feelings, emotions, and associations?

Junko: When I think about art – it is not necessarily an object, it is something that moves my heart or tickles my soul. I mean that physical reactions occur – the art can cause tears or goosebumps. That’s what I’m really looking for. I love those types of works where you can see a high level of craftsmanship, skilfulness, where a long process of repetition and polishing is behind the result.

AT: I want to extend this question. Do you think contemporary art should be defined? Should art universities, for instance, provide specific explanations of what ‘art’ is to their students?

Junko: I’m really against definition, to be honest. Art is all about accepting and finding each other to oddness and weird beauty, about coexistence of different values, and understanding each other’s values. And that’s why art is unbelievably amazing and important. Art is one of those few academic subjects – alongside Philosophy for example – where there cannot be only one answer to a question. Even scientists, for example, when they have some assumptions which need to be proved, they go through thousands of different tests – and then they find something they could not even imagine before those experiments. If they did any statements beforehand – it would break everything. The situation with art is quite similar

Propagation Project: Forest Floor, Haiku (2023), Wax coated, forged steel, 470 x 680 x 540mm, Approx. 77kg. Photo: Adrian Sasson

I believe. So, if we got a definition in the first place in the art academic guard, students or everybody ending up trying to fit to the definition, I can’t see the point of it at all. If we tried to define art in an academic way – it is a waste of time. I seriously believe in that. Answer is – Not at all. The only definition I have – art is something that moves my heart.

AT: On one hand, I totally agree that we will become very limited if we try to define something like art. Perhaps it’s not right then. But on the other hand, when there is no definition, we face such a situation where everything can be art. And there will be no argument against something to be called art, even if you obviously recognise that it is a substitution. Absence of any definition leads to a situation where non-professional art is at the same level as professional art, erasing any difference between them. Do you see that as a problem in the contemporary art world? Or you think it’s a common situation and there is nothing to worry about?

Junko: A French art scholar has already done an argument on this – he tried to define art, about 100 years ago in Paris. They put the artist in the gallery, and stated it is art. He was a pioneer, and everyone was talking about the definition of art and that time, and then ended up suggesting that stuff. In that context of the argument, anything could be art. So, he did it in a gallery and everyone has just seen and followed that kind of concept to be really honest. But to me, that philosophical thinking itself is a form of art. You remember the Turner Prize winner, I forgot his name – he got quite room just switch it on and off that guy’s well one year wasn’t it? And I think because he just came up with the idea and then - why not? I suppose. Although his kind of work did not move me, I’m sure there were some people who were moved by him, especially those who judged the Turner Prize that year. So, I think accepting other people’s judgement and all these things itself is an artistic process. So, I think it’s okay, and then I don’t think that it is a problem, but I tend to be moved by the craft of people making objects, after a few years of practice and then gain the skill, and then keep on pursuing this practice.

I can also be moved by completely different things – the beauty of nature, the process of my daughter’s swimming, even a football match can inspire me a lot, and move me. Yes, it’s not art –but it’s about the everyday moments we need to open our hearts to, to accept these moments to get in our soul, to choose to hold these moments that are happening around us. And to find it is your skill. You can go to Knightsbridge, the top florist shop and find beautiful new blooming flowers. Of course, it’s beautiful. I won’t deny it, but I can find a similar level of beauty in weeds in the field around us in Wales. So basically, to train yourself to find this amazing beauty around you is the artistic process itself, I think. When you’re not an artistically trained person, it might be quite boring for you to visit the National Gallery, for example. But I’ve been doing this practice for over nearly 30 years, then every year the museum hits me, it’s overwhelmingly fun and joyful. When I

was a student, I did not appreciate the National Gallery enough, and now I’m obsessed. When I am in London, I visit the museum to see the master Michelangelo, and every time I am impressed. The more you learn history, the more you are involved in your own professional practice/ The more you learn about the context of the specific time, the more open you are to see the whole beauty of the art.

Coming back to your question if everything can be art –yes, to be really honest. It depends on how you explain it and how you personally find the specific work, whether it touches your soul. That’s all about art.

AT: Yes, definitely. Then, let me ask another question – do you think there are different levels of art? For example, if we speak about Michelangelo’s works and recently graduated art students’ works – could we say this is the art of the same level?

Junko: I collect art – and you can see, I have different artists here, including young, recently graduated art students. And I am moved by their works. I accept different tiers, different levels of art. It is similar to sport: Andy Murray is a top tennis player, but an 8-year-old tennis player is still a tennis player. They are of different levels, you cannot compare them, you can’t say someone is not a sportsman. If I find an artwork I am really enjoying, if my heart is pinched, that is art for me. And that’s enough.

AT: To summarise, you think we can’t compare such an artist as Michelangelo to those who are just at the beginning of their professional pathways?

Junko: Yes, It’s like with diamond, gold, or other rare metal. Because it’s rare – its price automatically goes up. Michelangelo’s or Da Vinci’s works and paintings are ridiculously expensive, and there is no wonder why they are so expensive. One of my colleagues once said to me that the work we discussed was not as ‘high art’ as another. I was getting quite nervous hearing that. I believe we don’t need to say ‘high art’ and ‘low art.’ You can say – it’s not my cup of tea, or it’s not my taste. Fair enough, I agree. But High or Low… I don’t want to be the person saying that. That’s why yes, we might have different tiers of art, works of different values and prices. But all of that is art.

AT: My next question is: please give me three elements of art that professional art can’t exist without.

Junko: My personal answer is determination, perseverance, and persistence. That’s what I unfolded. These three elements are about not giving up and keeping going. Only a long process of trial and error, experiments, and tests, and then repetition and repetition to practise skills and techniques, can lead to the creation of truly professional art. So, these are three quite main things.

AT: When we are speaking about conceptual art, the idea becomes much more important than the work itself. What do you think about this?

Junko: I am convinced that both the concept and the shape are equally significant. But we’ve gone through this period of conceptual art – for already two decades now. I went to Yoko Ono’s exhibiton at Tate Modern where she described an idea on a piece pf paper – you could easily imagine that installa;on, but she just wrote it. It was just an idea, and she didn’t even need to create that. I thought it’s very clever. She was an amazing pioneer. The art already got into that stage. We don’t even need to create. It’s incredible, isn’t it? We are already hitting that stage now. And that was in the 1960s!

AT: Could you tell a bit about your artistic process of art creation?

Junko: Before I started my artistic career, I had panic attacks, and I was trying to find a solution to recover myself. I had to focus on my mental ability – how I could calm myself down. I started to learn a lot about different tools and methods, and then I began to research the repetition process in depth – in particular, its positive impact on our mental health. I found out that even household chores, when you focus on it, creates a kind of a meditative process that harmonises your inner state and resets the nervous system. And then I applied this repetition as an integral part in art creation – and all my works are still being made using many repetitive elements. The repetition, craft practice, forging, blacksmithing process, particularly at that time was helping me to overcome my panic attacks. I am doing thousands of elements which are ready to weld – and then I create a work. I don’t design the outcome beforehand – it is like a flow process. I could say that sometimes, I become very robotic – but at the same time, it’s about the achievement of the stage where you can make elements in a quite professional way, automatically.

AT: Another question I want to ask you is about success. I understand it might be difficult to evaluate whether the work is successful or not, especially in the art field. But nevertheless, what does success mean to you?

Junko: For me, success is when I sometimes jump around in the studio when I made something special – I feel happy and crazy. Yes, that’s definitely a successful moment. Sometimes I start welding and then this gorgeous piece starts appearing without any struggle –Wow, that’s done, no problem! Gorgeous. But I have many poisoned elements downstairs as well, I can’t control the whole process and something goes wrong, it is beyond my control. But then, a few years later, I go back to it – and I can find them quite successful after that. So, the more struggle I have, the more experience I gain, and I gain another layer of understanding. So, overall, I find it a success. I try, and then I must go through so much research, to gain more experience and knowledge. It’s interesting – each piece has some sort

of different elements of success, I suppose. But there’s no one answer to this because every moment has different types of successes.

AT: Do I understand correctly that your feeling of success is based on your own level of satisfaction rather than on other people’s judgements of your works?

Junko: Yes, it’s like this. In terms of social success for example, I am always, and am still puzzled. When I pass the British Museum and see a huge queue of people waiting to get in, I realise how popular this museum is, and that my work is in its collection! They bought it about 9 years ago – and it took 9 years for me to realise – wow, that should be a success! But I am still confused. To be honest, I often don’t see social success in the way others see it. But it’s a separate story. You know, I had times when I was very poor – about 20 years ago. Sometimes I want to ask myself how did I carry on? But I still had fun. But the one thing I can tell everybody – I absolutely loved what I did, and I love what I do. Because it saved my mental problems – it kind of saved my life in this way. I really believe that art is very important, and it’s a success that I found it to be really honest. I really would like to share that with everybody. If anyone’s struggling, I always say – do minor repetition. Weeding, gardening, or polishing the bathroom – seriously. It’s so good for you. If you start thinking, why are you depressed – that’s a problem. Just go for a walk, weed, or clean. It’s brilliant.

AT: Perhaps the last question – how do you see the art field nowadays and its future?

Junko: The only thing I can say is a very, very exciting time we are having right now. There are so many types of arts which coexist – not just contemporary conceptual art. We have many great musicians and painters whose art is different from conceptual, and they are still quite successful. Of course, there are always problems in any field. But if we focus more on what is exciting rather than what is problematic – and it’s not about purely “let’s be positive”, it’s not like that. I really seriously believe there’s so many corners in even local communities close by. There are so many hidden, amazing, exciting moments that are happening. And then, I think, to dig out these moments is the role of artists. And then fashion is the same – we can’t just keep on wearing what the media suggests us to wear. We should dig out, search for it. And the main problem is more to do with that sort of consuming what is available, including music and food, rather than researching for it. So, I think we need to start looking for what most excites us, then be part of it, and be proudly talking about our search. Sometimes we even don’t know how many great things exist beyond those which are popularised so widely around – let’s go deeper, and search for something more. I can say – it’s an amazing time ahead!

AT: Thank you very much for our conversation!

Junko: Thank you.

Propagation Project: Bird Ring (2023), Wax coated, forged steel, 1200 x 1200 x 330mm, Approx. 110kg.

Photo: Adrian Sasson

ARK NEWS

SUMMER 2024

Tate Britain

Art Now: Steph Huang: See, See, Sea 12 July, 2024 - 5 January, 2025

Art Now is a series of exhibitions at Tate Britain focusing on new work by emerging artists since the 1990s. This July, Art Now presents RCA Sculpture Alumni Steph Huang’s exhibition See, See, Sea, a thought-provoking show that uses sculpture, sound, found objects, and video to explore the cultural and environmental impacts of production and commerce cycles. Steph Huang uses techniques such as glass blowing, casting, film and sound to present a new installation of work. Inspired by her investigations into mass production and the history of the food industry, Huang creates poetic installations which question the effects that consumer culture has on our environment.

Image: Steph Huang, Serve Chilled, 2024, installation view, TateBritain, 2024. © Steph Huang.Photo © Tate (JoeHumphrys)

Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition 2024 18 June, 2024 - 18 August, 2024

The Royal Academy presents the 256th Summer Exhibition, a group exhibition that includes a work by Sophie-Louise Pywell, an RCA student in Contemporary Art Practice featured in this issue’s ARK Gallery. This exhibition is a unique celebration of contemporary art and architecture, providing a vital platform and support for the artistic community. British sculptor Ann Christopher RA has co-ordinated this year’s Summer Exhibition and with the Summer Exhibition Committee, explores the idea of making space.

Korean Cultural Centre UK

Across the Decades, Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the National Academy of Arts

4 July, 2024 - 23 August, 2024

The Korean Cultural Centre UK’s summer exhibition Across the Decades commemorates the 70th anniversary of the National Academy of Arts of the Republic of Korea, featuring 27 works by 17 luminaries. With their unwavering dedication to the creative process, the exhibition highlights how Korea’s academicians have not only paved unforeseen paths in Korean arts but also contributed significantly to the rapid development of Korean culture. By doing so, Across the Decades presents an invaluable opportunity to capture the essence of Korea’s modern and contemporary art.

Image: Across the Decades installation view, Korean Cultural Centre UK, 2024. Courtesy of KCCUK

D Contemporary CASCADES

12 July, 2024 - 3 August, 2024

Camden

Arts Centre

All Rendered Truth

05 July, 2024 - 15 September, 2024

Camden Art Centre presents the first institutional solo show in London by acclaimed American artist and musician, Lonnie Holley. Active across more than four decades, Holley is recognised as an important figure in the Black Art tradition from the southern states of America, as well as a significant artist in the mainstream of international twentieth century and contemporary art. The exhibition will centre new works made during a production residency in the UK earlier this year, alongside previously unseen sculptures made at The Mahler and LeWitt Studios in Spoleto, Italy in 2023, and key pieces made over the last few decades.

Image: Lonnie Holley, Without Skin, 2023, Fire hoses, wooden chairs, and nails. Courtesy the artist. Image courtesy of Edel Assanti. Photo: Tom Carter

D Contemporary Gallery presents CASCADES, a group exhibition featuring the work of Seohyun Oh, an RCA Painting student featured in this issue’s ARK Gallery, together with works of Ana Monso and William Farr. This exhibition explores the transformative and flowing nature of artistic inspiration and creation, delving into the transmission of ideas and emotions and creating narratives between gestures that evoke various modes of expression. The newly graduated artists showcase abstract paintings that intricately blend swirling colours and shapes, with each element seemingly cascading into the next, forming dynamic and interconnected compositions. These works delve deeper into the layers of meaning embedded within this visual masterpiece.

Image: Seohyun Oh, Sing What We know, 2024, Oil on canvas, 210 x 200 cm. Courtesy of the artist.

WHITE WALLS POLITICS OF

by Paul Chan

The «white cubes» gallery space is a fascinating concept that revolutionised the way we experience art. It became the default format for many people when they think of contemporary art. Characterised by stark white walls, unadorned surfaces, and a lack of decorative elements, this minimalist design creates a neutral environment that isolates the artwork from external contexts and historical connotations. It creates solitary confrontation, where there is no distraction between the viewer and the artwork.

This sterile, cold aesthetic emerged in the early 20th century, alongside the abstraction movement in modern art. Artists from groups like De Stijl and the Bauhaus were frustrated with distractions of the old, and instead found tranquillity in the clean simplicity of white walls and straight lines. Destroying the old and putting up the new was the mantra at the time. By making the surface become as monotonous as possible, walls were rendered to act as a frame, similar to the borders of a photograph which allows the art to take centre stage. The high modern zeitgeist in 1950’s led architects and designers to create a sterilised space by eliminating ornaments in pursuit of purity.

Modern white cube galleries take this concept to the next level. Picture walls that seem to float, seamlessly polished concrete floors creating an expansive horizon, and 6,500 Kelvin blue LED lights casting a cool industrial glow creates a stark space devoid

of historical context. Its visual hierarchy is designed to guide the viewer’s eye to the artwork. Brian O’Doherty, who coined the term «white cube», explored this idea in his 1976 essays “Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space” published in Artforum magazine and emphasis on how minimalist spaces became the default setting for modern and contemporary art.

Martin Herbert in ArtReview argues that these pristine white walls make artworks more appealing for commercial purposes while maintaining a conservative, safe structure within the art world. This fosters a market-driven approach to art presentation, encouraging a dialogue that appeals to those deeply engaged with contemporary art trends and theories. At the same time, the white cube became the new gatekeeper, setting an invisible fence that only people who understand the art language are allowed to enter and enjoy this new spiritual space for modern society.

Yves Klein’s exhibition “Le Vide” (The Void)1 at Iris Clert in 1958 was considered to be one of the first experimental white cube settings where the artists and curator deliberately transformed a space into an empty white wall room with an empty glass box that displayed nothing. This minimalist, decontextualized environment, however, is not merely a backdrop for the conceptual artwork but an infrastructure that profoundly shapes the experience and interpretation of the artwork. It moves beyond the visual art itself

to interrogate the conditions that make the art and its exhibition possible. By presenting an empty gallery space as art experience, Klein challenged traditional notions of what constitutes an artwork, highlighting the infrastructure of the gallery itself. The empty room, devoid of physical art objects, drew attention to the gallery’s white walls and spatial dynamics forced viewers to confront the often-invisible framework that supports the exhibition of art. In some sense, “La vide” is an early attempt on infrastructure critique that exposed how the gallery space itself conditions the viewer’s experience and understanding of art. Uncover the underlying systems and structures that shape cultural practices.

This spatial artwork can be seen as a social commentary on the commercialization of art. The empty gallery, stripped of any commercial objects, subverts the market-driven logic of the art world. It raises questions about the value of art and the commodification of aesthetic experience, asking what is on sale here? Klein’s work engages with the economic dimensions of infrastructural critique, challenging the profit-oriented motives that often underpin commercial art institutions. The white cube setting in many ways resembles a corporate environment or a high-end retail space highlighting the intersection of art, commerce, and consumerism.

We can look through Henri Lefebvre’s “The Production of Space”, which is the idea that space isn’t just a passive backdrop but is actively produced through social processes and power relations. He introduces a triadic model: spatial practice (how space is physically shaped), representations of space (how professionals conceptualise it), and spaces of representation (the symbolic meanings attached to it). Applying this to the white cube, we see a deliberate construction shaping our art experience. While designed to be neutral, this neutrality reflects the dominant cultural and economic structures of the art world. It suggests that the art within these walls are of significant cultural value, worthy of contemplation in a rarefied space. This symbolism is powerful, as it not only shapes how art is perceived but also reinforces the status and authority of the institutions that house it. The white cube thus becomes a site where power relations within the art world are both enacted and obscured.

The evolution of art spaces from 19th-century state-sanctioned museums to modern white cube galleries tells a story of shifting cultural and economic paradigms. In J. Pedro Lorente’s “Cathedrals of Urban Modernity: The First Museums of Contemporary Art, 1800-1930”, he describes how national museums served as state propaganda, promoting cultural supremacy and civic pride. These museums were grand structures, designed to showcase the power and sophistication of the nation. New nation-states compete to demonstrate the grand architects that housed artwork that is important while collecting foreign artist’s work shows the prowess of the state. The museum functioned as secular temples, embodying modernist’s ideologies and shaping public perception of culture and history which aims to guide society forward.

This is in direct contrast to the rise of white cube galleries which marks a shift towards privatisation and commercialisation. These spaces turn art into both an investment and a cultural product, reflecting the market-driven nature of contemporary art. The minimalist aesthetic of the white cube creates a sense of exclusivity and intellectualism, mirroring the economic forces that dominate the art world today. The simplicity of these galleries, with their white walls and clean lines, contrasts sharply with the grandiosity of 19th-century museums but serves a similar purpose: to shape public perception and reinforce cultural hierarchies. However, for white cubes, the objective is not to guide society forward but capitalise on the free market of art work.

The museum, with its grandeur, speaks to an era of state power and cultural nationalism. The white cube, with its minimalism, speaks to an era of market dominance and cultural commodification. Both types of spaces play a crucial role in the production and dissemination of cultural values, influencing how we perceive and engage with art. Values are numbered into currency with buyers, where gallerists are shy to use this word and instead they prefer calling this group of people as collectors in order to emphasise and disengage with money.

The lens of infrastructural critique provides a more informed understanding of the art world’s dynamics. The design and organisation of art spaces, regardless of their goals, are never neutral but imbued with signs and symbols. Consequently, they shape our experience of art and reflect the power structures within society. Art is, and always has been, political, even in the spaces that house it.

1 Le Vide (The Void). In 1958, YVES KLEIN caused a sensation to the Parisian public by presenting nothing but a whitewashed room with a lone, empty display case at Galerie Iris Clert. The exhibition, known as “Le Vide” (The Void).

Success is about movement

Interview with Casper Dillen by Victoria Stepanets

Today, contemporary art is becoming an increasingly ambiguous concept. Sometimes it seems that it has neither boundaries nor explanations. It is impossible to define what is art and what is not. And on the one hand, it has its advantages, because it does not create restrictions, but expands the worldview, and gives much more freedom of expression. On the other hand, it leads to blurring the line between amateurism and professionalism, which in turn raises the question: can everything be art? This is the topic we raise in this issue of the magazine, and in our interview with a choreographer, dancer, performance artist Casper Dillen, who is currently obtaining his Master degree at the Royal College of Art.

ArkTalks: The question I want to start with – what do you imagine when you hear the word ‘art’?

Casper: It is like a cake. There are the raw ingredients: the egg, the dough, the milk. And then there are preparations through the cooking process. The assemblage, severing, moulding, applying heat. The raw materials can be seen as the qualities, complex notions that exist in the world, one is thrown into a world that contains certain intersubjective qualities such as beauty, boredom, speed, surprise, etc. And the preparation can be the coming into contact with those forces with contemporaneity. The arrangement and manifestation. So the raw material and the preparation can be the coming into contact with those forces with contemporary art. There is creation, but also arrangement for me.

AT: You already talked a bit about your vision of art, but I want to extend this question with reflection on the definition. Do you think that art should be defined? And if yes, who has the right to determine it?

Victoria Stepanets in conversation with Casper Dillen, Photo: Ning An

Casper: I think in the whole debate around art and around the limitations of what art is, and what is not; what is allowed to be art, what is not allowed – these kinds of debates start to take on almost moral proportions. I believe art cannot be strictly defined. This is my reflection.

AT: If you were to speak about art in general, without the specification of any particular genre, what three elements would you say are most vital to call anything ‘art’?

Casper: It would be easier to speak about performance for me. But in these terms, the answer will depend on the specific kind of performance. If it is a blue performance, it cannot exist without blueness. If it is a fast performance, it needs speed. So, it depends on the type of performance or artwork being considered. The essential qualities of any art depend on their particular manifestations.

AT: Yes, yes, sure. I wonder, if we imagine ourselves in an art gallery now, looking at different works where some young artists are presented alongside the famous ones, and where abstract paintings are hung near the complicated figurative ones. We see amateur artists who are just at the beginning of their professional pathway, and next to them, well-known classic Medieval works. And here is my question – do you think we have any criteria to separate those artworks from each other, or there is no concern to just call all of them ‘art’?

Casper: Any work of art is very similar to getting to know a person and to becoming friends with the person, to spending time with them to establish contacts, to having a first meeting and a second meeting, to spending a lot of time with them. I’m going to learn about their contexts that are inherent to them, go on some kinds of dates with them, and give them my attention. And in this establishment of a particular way of interacting with each other, becoming friends, going beyond archetypes, going beyond expectations, there is also an evolution. This is how I interact with artworks. And I think this also answers the question – this is how I judge people, and this is how I judge work. I don’t think any person can be judged on any particular quality. I mean, if someone was running a marathon, you’re talking about speed. So you can judge the person based on their speed. But if you’re talking about judging a person, every particular person meets their particular way of approaching. That’s why I say blue work must be judged by its blueness. What is no less important – images have the ability to bring their own criteria elements that become essential for this particular work.

AT: Could we say that you are trying to see the artist, the person behind their works?

Casper: No, no, I see the work itself. I approach it like a person. The way I approach an image is very similar to the way I approach a person. There are works in the National Gallery that have become my friends. I visit them regularly, the way that I catch up with friends.

AT: And what about the context of the work? Do you prefer to know more about the circumstances the art piece was created, about that time, the author’s story etc. Do you need it to understand the work better?

Casper: I think it’s very similar to the way you meet a new person. Although by spending time, I can be very good friends with someone without really knowing their history. But then, if I knew their history, I could understand them much better. And we can trust each other.

AT: And I also wanted to ask about descriptions of the works. Do you prefer first to read about the work or to look at the work?

Casper: I prefer to explore the work by myself first, and after that to read more about it. Because otherwise, I think it’s a little bit like gossiping. It’s similar to, you know, when you hear a lot about a person before meeting them – and only after getting to know them in person you understand who they are. Only after this, does it become interesting.

AT: Do you provide a detailed description to the audience – or do you prefer someone interpreting it in their own way?

Casper: The work sits within an oral tradition where memory, interpretation and anecdote become performative works in themselves. Telling a third party about a performance is a moment of storytelling that can be as powerful as the original performance. I believe in the ability of people to make strong performative gestures when engaging in speech acts. Thinking, interpreting and speaking.

AT: Then I have another question. Imagine I know nothing about art. How can you explain to me, what is performance?

Casper: Yeah, it’s also a kind of definition. So, for me, theatre is a piece of socio-political technology. It is a place where people are allowed – and moreover they are invited – to look at other people. This is not always the case. Sometimes. It’s inappropriate to continuously look at people, but in theatre, for that moment, people are allowed to look at other people, and their performance. And this creates an environment and a place where questions can be generated in silence without necessarily talking to each other, in each other’s heads, but together, there’s a kind of being alone but also being together. And these questions are very ontological, and also political and societal. They are questions like: Who are we? Who can we be? Who do we want to become? And so, the theatre is a place where ontological debates can happen in silence. And it’s a piece of socio-politics.

AT: Could you say a bit more about the non-professional performances you face in the art world nowadays? When you see some works and honestly can’t understand why this low level of implementation is so popular and/or famous?

Casper: It’s a good question, but I would like to pass on it if you don’t mind.

AT: May I ask you to tell, in a few words, how you came to practising performance?

Casper: I started as a dancer actually.

AT: And how did you decide to become a performer?

Casper: Well, I decided it because I wanted to make images. If I had the skills to be a painter, I would have become a painter. You know, I was very passionate about image-making in general, but I was not a painter. I had the skills in dancing instead, and I wanted to make something much more specific to time and space, to make images that are moving, that have a narrative, that ask questions. Images that are a little bit like moving sculptures.

AT: I have a question about success. I know it’s difficult to evaluate it. But anyway, when you are doing the performance, how do you understand whether it is successful or not? Does it depend on the reaction of the audience, or is it more related to your inner feeling – if you managed to reveal the initial idea, or if you managed to perform in the best way you could?

Casper: For example, we had been working for more than one year on the recent performance ‘A mirror is not a mirror’, with regular rehearsals.

AT: Over one year?

Casper: Yes. And it’s very important for me that I had time and regular rehearsals during this period. It demands a lot of passion from a lot of people. And this itself moves me that the whole team has this desire to work on something regularly, for such a long time. I believe there is something fundamentally important about success in that context.

AT: I think it’s difficult to keep people so passionate and interested in something for over one year. How do you choose people to work with? They should be your close friends, not just colleagues?

Casper: Yeah. They are very passionate about their work, and this is so important. Without this, the work could not be done. And I am so grateful. It’s not easy to find people who are involved so deeply, that’s why a part of the team tends to remain the same, however it is changed from performance to performance, with more or less the same artists for the project.

AT: So, let’s go back to the question about success. Given your recent performance ‘A mirror is not a mirror’ – do you feel it was successful?

Casper: Yeah, certainly. This is already a success.

AT: And how did you come to this understanding? You said earlier that a kind of success for you is when the process moves you. Could you expand on this more?

Casper: It should move me, as I said before. I see every work as a person, I feel like the work has some identity, some newness or speed. And these have become the criteria. So the criteria for the success of the work are internal to the work itself. And what else makes me happy is when I feel the work is like a person. It has this quality. The reason why I say that the process itself is so important is that no work is ever fully finished, they just stop in interesting places. And the finish is only prompted by deadlines because I can keep working on them. I worked on the performance ‘A Mirror is not a mirror’ for more than a year, but I could have worked on it for another three years, but I had the deadline for the festival – and the piece had to come to a closure. So, yeah, this is not finished, and will never be finished, which is another interesting element to consider.

AT: I want to focus on the process of your work now. From the very first idea to the final performance: what do you start with, what kind of steps do you have, and how do you organise the work within the team?

Casper: Maybe I wouldn’t explain all in detail. It might not be so interesting I believe. But I want to highlight that I don’t have separate research and creation processes – for me these both processes run parallel. So, I’m always researching and working on performances at the same time. Because of practical reasons, those processes overlap. I often rehearse several projects at the same time and they’re different performances.

AT: Speaking about ‘A mirror is not a mirror’ – what could you say about the preparation process of this performance?

Casper: It started with an idea of performance for the church, for the festival. And I see the church as the place where experimentations always happen, visual experimentations. So we started preparing specifically for this venue.

AT: So, one year ago you already knew that it would be in the church?

Casper: Yes, yes. We were told to prepare it for the church, one year in advance.

AT: Can it be performed in churches only?

Casper: No, it can take place in different places, but the meanings might change a bit depending on the venue. So, our original idea was to make a performance for the church, and then I started

thinking about the relationship between churches and museums. Analysing that, I thought that the paintings that used to be in churches are now in museums.

We used to see the museums as very quiet places, where you can’t speak loudly and can’t touch the works. Sometimes they look like a hospital. And the churches are very similar in this case. However, nowadays it is being changed.

AT: Why have you chosen such a title – ‘A mirror is not a mirror’? I really love it.

Casper: The idea is similar to the quote by Bertolt Brecht: ‘Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it’. The thing about titles is that their names are given by the author. That means they’re just names given by others. There’s no magic power attached to them. But the magic is in the absence, not in the presence,which adds a layer of the oral tradition of talking about works. Their meanings change in ways you wouldn’t have imagined in the collaborative moments between people inside and outside the work. I quite like the role of anecdotes within storytelling where a person watches a performance, goes home and tells their partner what they just saw. And that moment of telling a story to the partner

is a performance in itself. What I mean is that within this moment of sharing anecdotes, new interpretations emerge, making this act of storytelling strong performative gestures.

AT: Such storytelling is also a kind of performance.

Casper: Yes, definitely. I did a degree in Philosophy, and this is what Aristotle said about anecdotes.

AT: Thank you very much for this thoughtful conversation. It was such a pleasure to speak to you.

Casper: Thank you!

Yi Wang rehearsing for the performance ‘a mirror is not a mirror’. Photo: Lila Rui Lan.

Dann Xiao (Left) and Yujie Duan (Right) rehearsing for the performance ‘a mirror is not a mirror’. Photo: Lila Rui Lan.

ON

LETTERS

by Connor Dillman

Recently I have been thinking about my artistic practice, which is led by painting, as a way to inject concentrated doses of intense presence into a contemporary world inundated with fast, fleeting information. My favorite paintings to look at (and to make) are those that present images with great economy to lasting effect. To linger in front of a piece and feel one’s periphery fall away in the presence of elemental human mark making is to strengthen one’s link to what I call “The Shared”—the mysterious wellspring artists are constantly trying to tap for little tastes of what it means to be alive.

Letter writing, which I cherish and consider a vital ritual for nurturing my creativity, carries a very similar charge for me. To participate in the exchange of handwritten letters is to keep the embers of art’s promise burning in a cultural landscape that often seems bent on snuffing them out.

Think about the steps taken when someone chooses to write to you: they must confirm your address (intimately privileged information), find some paper and an envelope, grab a writing utensil, consider their relationship to you, write something using their own unique vocabulary in their hand’s singular flourish, maybe include some ephemera in the envelope if relevant, seal the envelope, take it to a post office, tag it with your address and their own, pay for postage, and send it off.

When you receive such a gift, a sacred transfer of energy occurs. You imagine the valuable time it took to process it amongst piles of other mail, haul it away in a vehicle by wheels or wings, transfer it to a bag carried on a human back, and eventually deliver it to you by hand. As you tear open the package and start to read, time bends to bring the writer’s past state of mind into the present moment. It’s magical to sense yourself in the physicality of their scribbles (not unlike a painting). No matter their content, the words on the page confirm what to me is the sign of a successful work of art—that two people have become connected by it.

DOLORES MAVRIDO

Dolores Mavrido seeks naturalness and intimacy in unusual environments, looking for balance between colours that are in constant conflict with each other. In doing so, she explores colour theory, the borders of skin and environment, and the relationship between the creation and destruction of an image.

MA Painting, Royal College of Art “

Although I use traditional means of expression, my themes start from images that emerge digitally through photo editing programs. I use oil paint as my main medium because it gives me a freedom of technical expression that matches my processing needs. As organic as it may seem, my paintings are controlled down to the smallest touch. I go far beyond digital imagery reproduced on canvas by painting everything that cannot be rendered and visualised digitally, transforming my digital prototypes into paintings. Incorporating effects of dust and fragments in my paintings is an attempt to render a broader transcendent reality that unifies everything in harmony, creating images that imply an infinite connection between people and everything around them as a response to the unified nature of reality - the phenomenon of the endless connection between everything - from the most distant galaxy to the undivided atom. I’m inspired by Einstein’s theory of general relativity that conceptualises the underlying influence of matter on the fabric of spacetime and the relationships this builds.

Rebirth (2024), oil on linen, 95 x 85cm

JING TSUI

MA Digital Direction, Royal College of Art

Jing Tsui is a multifaceted new media artist, whose repertoire spans from video art, digital visuals, data visualisation, interactive installations, cinematography, visual communication, and photography. Her creations explore the boundaries between society and the individual, often drawing from her observations and emotional experiences.

I was inspired by a news article from a few years ago. A man found a female celebrity’s house via Google Maps through the reflection of her pupils in a selfie and committed a crime. This incident revealed how modern technology can be misused to invade privacy, a problem that could worsen as technology evolves. As an artist, I feel a responsibility to remind the public that even seemingly trivial information can be used for inappropriate purposes.”

Tsui’s work problematizes the invasion of privacy in the digital age. By cleverly combining 3D and 2D elements, she creates a new visual language. This fusion not only demonstrates visual layers and depth in form, but also allows the viewer to experience and understand the complex topic of privacy invasion from different perspectives. Her work challenges traditional artistic expression and introduces a more dynamic and interactive visual experience.

Watch Out (2024), digital artwork

MATHIJS HUNFELD

MA Contemporary Art Practice, Royal College of Art

Mathijs Hunfeld interrogates the superficial layers of pop culture, where he utilises an interdisciplinary practice to engage with themes of fantasy and desire. Through a conceptual approach, his work offers a critical and ironic reflection to both showcase the glory and reveal its downfall.

Hunfeld’s self-reflective viewpoint plays a pivotal role in creating work that finds its place at the crossroads of fine arts and consumer goods.

This body of work revolves around the critical branding process of TADA. TADA creates body accessories and borders in public space through the ideology of contemporary consumption. The relationship of these two disciplines is closely related to the subject’s exchange between entertainment and appropriation of mainstream content and functions as a mirror back to its user.

The brand name refers to the infant’s missing vocabulary and the exclaim of a reveal, satirically making a combination that focuses on the non-constructive pursuit of self-promotion. The accessories and scenography of TADA show the absent user through work that is pushed to a physical and conceptual point of collapse. The brand exists on the intersection between subject and object, drawing a self-sabotaging character rooted in the pursuit of pleasure.

BABY FACE IT (2024), Chocolate and acrylic, 9 x 11 x 7 cm

ROSE ANTONY

MA Visual Communication, Royal College of Art

Rose Antony is an illustrator and visual artist from Kochi, India. She draws inspiration from both personal experiences and archival research to redefine visual narratives, exploring themes of culture, identity, and gender.

I want to relearn what art means to me, as someone who has been taught to imitate Western masters of fine art. I want myself to copy the anonymous artists of the past who created detailed and sustainable art practices of Kerala. I want people to learn and appreciate these techniques and help revive them.”

Rose Antony uses graphite pencil to sketch on a Tholpavakoothu (

) puppet which she creates using traditional art practices. Her artwork, ‘Carving out my tradition,’ delves into the intricate portrayal of gender and sexuality within Indian culture. Drawing inspiration from the ancient Indian art form of Shilpa Shastras, which served as a guide for sculpting stone, she challenges prevailing stereotypes by presenting her body as if sculpted in stone, reminiscent of historical stone sculptures. Contrary to common belief that Indian stone sculptures sexualize female bodies, she argues that they actually liberate them.

Carving out my tradition (2024), graphite on Tholpavakoothu puppet, 26 x 40cm

SEOHYUN OH

MA Painting, Royal College of Art

Seohyun Oh is a London-based artist from South Korea. Her practice explores making marks based on poetic expressions. She sees everything–even seemingly static objects–as in motion, and she creates her own marks on the canvas, akin to musicians shaping sounds. Each painting is an adventure, an exploration of form and energy.

I draw inspiration from personal experiences when painting. This particular piece was inspired by my recent trip to the Sahara Desert in Morocco, a destination I dreamed about visiting since childhood, as my favourite story, «The Little Prince» by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is set in a desert. I was also listening repeatedly to «Perth» by Bon Iver, a song I became attached to once I discovered that the song was inspired by Heath Ledger, an actor who holds a special place in my heart. The song’s rhythm and lyrics intertwined with the desert landscape that I had been carrying within me since my trip to the Sahara Desert, conjuring the imagery of a flower blooming in an otherwise barren desert.»

Seohyun Oh uses her artwork as a mirror reflecting her evolving nature, through which she communicates her experiences and memories. For her, painting transcends being a flat, twodimensional art form. It becomes a complex field within a frame that directly mirrors the depth of her life and experiences. Through this process, the artist also gains heightened awareness of her inner journey, as independent memories converge and manifest as a cohesive expression of her most authentic self.

Furling Forests for the Soft, Gotta Know Been Lead

Aloft (2023), oil on canvas, 100 x 120 cm

SHIFENG ZHANG

MA Visual Communication, Royal College of Art

Shifeng Zhang is a feminist graphic designer, storyteller, community worker, and artist interested in publishing design. Her projects centre around themes of gender, boundaries and language.

This is a glass container designed based on the female genitalia.

In China, there was a time when many people compared women to vases, where women were objectified and gazed at by men. Inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, Shifeng Zhang interpreted the gender issue from the relationship between the container and the weapon, and the history of the development of the container. The project also rethinks the East Asian female identity from the perspective of «boundary» and «giving».

This work has been realised with the help of Liam Reeves, a technician at the Royal College of Art hot glass workshop.

The Container, the Giver (2024), glass container

SOPHIE-LOUISE PYWELL

MA Contemporary Art Practice, Royal College of Art

Sophie-Louise Pywell creates work that sits at the intersection between feminism and the occult. Inspired by generational skills of craft, Sophie-Louise creates work that reclaims the crafts often seen as domestic or ‘women’s work’.

“Growing up, the difference between my sisters and brothers was blatant. The same blood but different rules. Boys can stay home alone but us girls could not, because what if I invited a boy around. Is it me you don’t trust or the boys? And while my brothers learnt to drive, I was reminded of how women are worse drivers than men. But hey, don’t get annoyed about this difference. God, you are so emotional. The job roles my brothers had were all careers made for men. Should I want the same jobs, you must add an obvious statement of “woman” in front or after it. It’s ‘camerawoman’ not ‘cameraman’. Darling you can’t be a businessman, you are a businesswoman. This sexism is so deeply ingrained and woven through the fabric of our society that it took me so long to notice it. So many years of wondering why I couldn’t be the woman that everyone wanted me to be, before I realised that we were all being set up to fail. Get the career you want and deserve and expect to be taken advantage of by colleagues and powerful people around you. But you’re happy right? You got the career you wanted right? No, I totally understand why some women would prioritise their career and own life over having children and a happy family. Oh, wait you do want a family? But do you not want a flourishing career and independence? Oh, darling, you can’t have both, you need to be an at home woman or a career woman. What box can we put you in?

“Smile, love”, “a frown is wasted on a pretty face like that”. So, I smile and then you tell me I’m flirting. “But she was asking for it”, “If you don’t want attention, why did you dress like that?”

Your politics regulate my body as though flesh and bones are a policy or a law that you control, even if the laws you make don’t affect you. But that’s the thing with power, in order to have it, you need someone to hold it over.

And I think that if I don’t laugh, I may cry. And as much as the tears have built up behind my eyes, I don’t want them to see me weak. To see me be the vulnerable person they think that I am.

A Common Thread (2023-4), thread woven on cloth

LUJANE VAQAR PAGGANWALA

MAContemporary Art Practice, Royal College of Art

Lujane Vaqar Pagganwala is a multidisciplinary artist, whose practice investigates the phenomenology of space, as an idea and physical entity. She takes inspiration from childhood spaces as well as her city; Karachi’s architectural infrastructure, to create an amalgamation of hybrid realities. Her works explore concepts of Liminality, Latency, Hauntology, Entanglement and (Non) structuralism, to imbue the ‘fourth space’ through her on-going research and practice.

Any Way The Wind Blow Doesn’t Really Matter To Me

In our congruence of performance, And the mediation of flow,

Beneath the canters of joy

Of a polymorphous motion,

In attempts to emit the saga, One last time, Let down your hair.

Burnt from the roots, Yet preached by its light. We row now as ghosts Of frozen fractals, Besieging their ground within. Of winds that blow an ember

And the naive air that speaks to Midas

Must they become into weeping whispers lurking through the mass. I never really understand this state of silence. The kind that breathes faintly through to its dissemination. Yet I too, stand here amongst its inhales, absolutely mute.

Blue succulents soak the core

Of a teething amygdala

The voyeurism plagued by the curtain Now washed across those mangrove fields

That no longer remain

So they sit

Under the shade

Of towers

Surrounded by crumbs

That were left by old forts

And we were left

As was the uncracking paint

On walls built for surrender

The beating drip

Sings a ballad

Of white cries

Racing through the sublime

Dreams seem uncanny. Until you dream of a mirage, and then it’s a dream..of essentially another dream? Frame within a frame. The womb within her. Rites of passage.

This air

No longer naive

No longer speaks

No longer flows

This air stands a mirror

This air stands a wall

This air stands a field

Stands a tower

That blows the air now a wind

And… Any way this wind blows It doesn’t really matter to me

Headpiece for the performance ‘Any Way The Wind Blow Doesn’t Really Matter To Me’

CREDITS

Editorial Team

Project manager - Victoria Stepanets | MA Curating Contemporary Art

Chief editor - Soyeon Jung | MA Curating Contemporary Art

Co-editor - Yuna Goda | MA Writing

Designer - Elissa Lenoir Ajaka | MA Visual Communication

Contributing Writers (in order of appearance)

Victoria Stepanets | MA Curating Contemporary Art

Asja Skatchinski | MA Curating Contemporary Art

Paul Chan | MA Curating Contemporary Art

Yuna Goda | MA Writing

Connor Dillman | MA Painting

Special Thanks to:

Casper Dillen

Kaisa Saarinen

Junko Mori

All contributing artists

For inquiries and collaboration opportunities, please contact us via Instagram @arttalksrca.