The Chinese part of the exhibition entitled ‘九思九容’ means nine mental attitudes (九思) and nine demeanors (九容), which Yulgok, the Confucian scholar of Joseon Dynasty, cited from ‘The Analects of Confucius’ and ‘Liji’(The Book of Rites) when writing his book ‘The Secret of Expelling Ignorance (擊蒙要訣)’ to teach his pupils. Borrowing this concept, we titled SeMA NANJI 9th Review as by substituting the original meaning of mental attitude in ‘九思’ with experimental attitude of artists, and demeanor in ‘九容’ with artistic expression. Thus, implies that the 9th term artists of SeMA NANJI RESIDENCY deeply contemplated, explored, and repeated numerous experiments which are expressed through their works’ complexity. Also, the number ‘9’ in Asian culture is regarded as the fullest number to express in this life. In fact the number 9 character in Chinese writing (九) is pronounced the same as 具 (to possess). It also implies perfection, which we intended to reflect in the exhibition title. Thus, ‘九思九容’ in the exhibition title means the perfect works of the artist, as well as that it is the 9th outcomes of SeMA NANJI RESIDENCY after our journey with them.
SeMA NANJI RESIDENCY is the residency program operated by Seoul Museum of Art. It is the creative space where young artists reside and produce artworks, as well as being an active field within the art world where diverse artistic experiments, research, exhibitions, and exchanges take place. Inaugurated in 2006, SeMA NANJI RESIDENCY has undergone many changes and improvements, which culminates in today’s 9th program. It is now able to provide the resident artists a more systematic program. Among the programs, the ‘NANJI ART SHOW’ is an exhibition the resident artists plan and operate by themselves by sharing their field of interest. They collaborate based on various topics, and create exhibitions in new formats. Also, during the research program ‘Art Critic Workshop’, the artists discuss their work from diverse perspectives with critics, and participate in producing a creative theory of their work. Through this process, the artists may improve their work with more depth in terms of content and expression.
Artists reason through sensuous thinking or intuitive sensibility rather than logical thinking. At the same time, such a way of reasoning is linked and processed through various experiments while engaged in studies or experimentation. After repeating, actualizing, and abstracting the studies, when the artist feels that it is done, the work is presented to the world as one expression. When comparing such experiments and expressions of the artists to ‘九思’ and ‘九容,’ for 9th term artists, the phrase ‘九思’ is their nine topics: reality, society, daily life, art, ideology, experience, emotion, generation, and tradition, while the phrase ‘九容’ is the result of the nine expressions on that topics. The expressions may reveal the significance of invisible spaces, reflect on the issue of social participation, assign authentic meaning to objects in daily life, crush stereotypes through recycling, expand the domain of art by suggesting new ways of drawing or applying craft skills, express relations formed in multilayers, and utilize new mediums of the current era such as digital technology, sound, or light.
is the survey of the outcomes of the past year in which the 21 artists of the 9th term of SeMA NANJI RESIDENCY have worked on. Through the exhibition, we are able to feel and appreciate their experimental spirit and expressive will.
