CV: MeeNa Park and Sasa[44] is a dual exhibition of works by MeeNa Park and Sasa[44], two artists who have been developing methodologies for investigating, collecting, and analyzing objects and information over the course of their careers. Showcasing a shared critical awareness around the context of production and consumption, original and replica with their first joint exhibition in 2002, MeeNa Park and Sasa[44] continue to work both individually and collaboratively through establishing experimental relational conditions. CV borrows the conventions of a curriculum vitae to reconstruct two decades of exhibitions held by the artists, separately and together, and combine them into one show.
A CV is a document that serves as a record of an individual’s educational, professional, and personal experiences ― experiences recast as information, organized to fit various socially-determined categories, and used as a means of displaying one's public-facing narrative to the world. A CV, then, can be understood as a system for structuring information; in much the same way, MeeNa Park and Sasa[44] have designed a systematic methodology for weaving their artistic worlds together, building on a foundation of data collection and survey-based research. Where MeeNa Park draws a connection between the colors of her paintings and the commercial distribution systems of the paints themselves to explore the contemporary conditions of fine art, Sasa[44] collects different materials that represent their era and coopts practices from popular music ― like featuring, sampling, and mashups ― to generate new layers of meaning.
The exhibition is divided into two sections, echoing the format of a CV: “Exhibition Record” and “Bibliography.” In “Exhibition Record,” visitors encounter over 140 pieces that include early and representative works that span the entirety of MeeNa Park and Sasa[44]’s major past exhibitions, as well as some that have never been shown. Each piece acts as a mediating device between past exhibitions and the present, their categorization and arrangement unveiling new meanings by emphasizing different associations between them. In “Bibliography,” 1,259 articles that mention MeeNa Park and/or Sasa[44], clipped from domestic and international newspapers, magazines, and other serial publications published between 2001 and 2022, are collected and reconstituted into a book and a sound installation. Even as CV unpacks the significance of collecting, archiving, and recordkeeping through the work of MeeNa Park and Sasa[44], the show seeks to explore the process of data collection and research in new ways.
