SPACE March 2023 (No. 664)
Exhibition view of ‘respectively, Peter Weibel. Art as an Act of Cognition’, Images courtesy of MMCA
A photobooth was installed inside the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Seoul. Can instant photography, which seems to have become a trend once more, be considered art? While there was a moment in time when people lined streets and concourses to take sticker photos, the current trend is for instant photography. For the large part, instant photography studios have powder rooms and various accessories to one side, and users are drawn to employ these props when taking photos. Peter Weibel’s works from the 1960s seem to anticipate these situations. In Self-portrait as Woman (1967), Weibel is covering his eyes or mouth with newspaper or advertisement in a black-and-white photograph. The props are a device to change gender or make oneself look like a stranger, and it reveals a fictional characteristic that has been shadowed from the photography’s capability of reproduction. The reason why the photobooth installation, FLICK_KR (2007, 2023) was exhibited was to make the audience experience the essence of photography in person.
Weibel has for several decades worked in the realm of conceptual art informed by the media landscape. His artwork presents the ‘recognition process’ itself, awakening the auditory senses and mental picture quite apart from the sense of sight. For example, in Moaning Stone. Non-human Poem (1969), the groan of a patient emerges from of the recorder hidden in the three stones. In 1969, Weibel took one of the stones and secretly put it in a park and was arrested because a passerby heard the groan and called the police. In the exhibition hall, one sees visitors frowning at the sound or wandering around to find the source. In this exhibition, one of Weibel’s representative works Chants of the Pluriverse (1986 – 1988) is also introduced. This work renders visible the ways in which technology has changed the world, from the industrial revolution to the information revolution based on data innovations. As soon as visitors enter the exhibition space, they will be captivated by the images and sounds coming from the 11 large screens suspended above and find themselves immersed in synaesthetic responses.
Meanwhile, Weibel’s first retrospective in Korea, ‘respectively, Peter Weibel. Art as an Act of Cognition’, is a touring exhibition curated by MMCA and Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (ZKM) in Germany. The exhibition is reconstructed based on the exhibitions held at ZKM between 2019 and 2020, and features about 70 works including photography, video, and installation work. The exhibition will be on display until May 14.
by Han Garam
Installation view of Chants of the Pluriverse (1986 – 1988), Images courtesy of MMCA
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