Ha Chong-Hyun (b. 1935, Korea)
Conjunction 20-24, 2020

This kind of painting gets me to think of my field recordings (sound) – they are what they are. How can they be art? But gradually I start realising the importance of positioning, selection, framing – all those more or less intuitive or deliberate choices that are going into the “work” to be presented as such. And that somehow all those choices refine something, attune an attention to something that is not “nothing”, not really “random”, something that acquires – or generates meaning in a quite particular way. I find it quite fascinating. And Chong-Hyun unintentionally nudges me in a direction of how I could think the same process in other, not only sonic works of mine. How drawing attention to how something is – without too much manipulation – may be an artistic act. I guess, I am currently positioning this somewhere in-between the traditional art and readymade – it is not readymade in a sense that this particular assemblage of materials enjoined by particular articular gesture was not found “as is”, it was deliberately made. But in opposition to a lot of “traditional” art, it is not forcing materials to represent anything but themselves. Also, variation of thickness of the paint makes its appreciation almost sculptural even if it is on canvas, transcending traditional classifications of media.

Yet, in all my appreciation of this, remains a sense of insecurity – what does it take to get accepted into the artworld with such minimalist gestures? To what extent is it about appreciation of the formal qualities of this work – and to what extent it is an institutional product of going to the “right schools”, affiliating with the “right gallerists”, establishing “a style” etc…