Jazz Club audiences can easily recognize how band members follow a solo improviser and how the band begins to harmonize in a unique, on the spot music. In jazz world vernacular, this playing is called interplay. The 2015 National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) has launched a new Site Specific Art Project, Interplay, where four artwork installations play music using their own timbre similar to jazz.

MMCA, using its spacious gallery, has consecutively displayed several installation works under the name of Site Specific Art projects, including Interplay. In the display, four pieces depict what has escaped the frame of classic art. The four artists, of different nationalities, participating in the exhibition are Assume Vivid Astro Focus (AVAF), Ross Manning, Jinnie Seo, and Shinji Ohmaki. Each maverick formulates his or her own distinctive art philosophy influenced by his or her cultural backgrounds. What is unique is the way four different styles of artwork intermingle as one exhibition.

Entering gallery number six, the audience faces a huge wallpaper space called, "Actively Voracious Absolutely Flexible (AVAF) Installation," same with the artists’ initials. The art utilizes three dimensional space, omitting the ceiling. The artwork entices the viewers and makes them feel like they are actually in the artwork. The audience’s shadows on the video work also maximize the interaction between the art and speculators.

▲ "Spectra Double" is playing across the exhibition room. Photographed by Lee Dawoon.

AVAF can be defined as hybrid. The medium is mainly collage as it overlaps various images: sexual women, alcohol, and fireworks in a ferocious pop art style. Two artists bring whatever they are attracted to the works and do not mind if it belongs to high or subculture. Yet, their philosophy is not shallow. Rather, AVAF’s work speculates on society’s different aspects. Materials used in the pieces are easily found in daily life, allowing viewers to feel familiar with the installation. The well-known enterprises such as Pepsi, and musicians like Lady Gaga collaborated with AVAF for the same reason.

The next exhibition is Ross Manning’s kinetic artwork, "Spectra Double" which is located in the third basement. It creates a party atmosphere. Using red, green, and blue fluorescent lights in layers, it displays a feast of lights by mixing them together. The two mobiles, powered by propellers, rotate randomly. Viewers observe pure white light as the three lights coincide in one line as a climactic moment happening by coincidence. The strong point of the installation is scientific technology used by the artist to hypothesize on a paradoxical idea.

After Manning's creative electronic work, the gallery's atmosphere totally changes. "Wandering Still (遊仙詞)," is installed in a storage for conserving artworks. Contrary to the prior two pieces, "Wandering Still" creates an atmosphere that is still and tranquil, like that of eastern philosophy. The artwork pays homage to two historical Korean artists, Kang Hee Ahn and Hu Nan Sul Hun. The artist, Jinnie Seo's intention is to portray landscapes that have appeared on Kang’s general artworks.

 Seo wove 25 meters of straw and oiled Korean paper, Hanji, that conjures up "Wandering Still" as a peaceful landscape from a phrase in one of Hu’s poems: “It cannot fly soaked with fragrant clod permeating the earth.” The artwork not only visualizes the scene in an abstract way, but spreads the fragrant wood scents from the oil in the paper. The effects allow viewers to think about their own ideal landscape.

-Wondering Still-

                          By Hu Nan Sul Hun

The air is misty and the crane has not returned

Under the flowery shade of the laurel, the wooden gate is closed

Mystic rain at the water’s edge all day long

It cannot fly soaked with fragrant cloud permeating the earth

The last piece, "Liminal Air-Descend" a short spiritual trip by Shinji Ohmaki that makes viewers curious before they even glimpse the installation because it is an usher’s instruction. The usher asks them to wear a mask and take their shoes off. After putting on a mask and removing their shoes the audience begins a 20 thousand rope forest adventure toward a white light.

At the beginning of the trip, endless white ropes feel strange and even slightly threatening. Viewers, however, soon ease themselves into the artwork and enjoy going forward to the ultimate world, becoming a hermit. Beyond the rope forest, chi, referring to a vital eastern energy, fully dominates the space. In the recreated spiritual room, people voluntarily meditate upon their lives.

▲ The spiritual images of “Liminal Air-Descend” mesmerizes viewers. Photographed by Lee Dawoon.

However, the exhibition clearly has a limitation in that its theme is "interplay" but it does not interplay with all people. Since the passage that links "AVAF Installation" and "Spectra Double" is stairs, people who are in wheelchairs or who push strollers cannot view the exhibition, and basically, this lack of mobility negates the main theme.

Despite the obstacle, the exhibition is highly praised for its innovative trial. By juxtaposing different artists’ installations in one exhibition, viewers can experience diverse feelings. The artists share a common belief that viewers can complete their works in the museum. They harmonize in the MMCA, where the installations are customized for the gallery.

<Exhibition Information>

Location : Gallery Six, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Seoul

Open Hours : 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays (until 9 P. M .on Wednesdays and Saturdays)

Date : April 14 to August 23, 2015

Admission : 4000 won (Free for those born after 1990 or current university students. Student ID cards or other forms of ID for age verification)