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DIAMONDS - 2007
Largescale Collaborative Work

As part of the 2007 Ssamzie/MICA/KNUA Summer Residency Program, a group of young art students were asked to collaborate on EXHIBITION WHITE in Ssamzie Gallery and Gallery 175 in Insadong, Seoul. The work was to have a critical stance on contemporary feminism and fantasy capital in Seoul, and the team of artists consisted of a mix of ethnicities, ages, and artistic backgrounds, some of whom had never been to Seoul before, and others who had grown up there.

Through shared experiences of Korean culture in the city, documentation, collection, and dialogue (supplemented by theory readings and led by Mina Cheon, George Ciscle, Eve Laramee & Gabriel Kroiz), an exhibition of work was born in less than 2 weeks, on-site. With ties to academic institutions, the entire residency was more of an experimentally directed performance of tests and exercises.

(FEATURE IN NY ARTS Magazine)

Working around language barriers and through physical and cultural limits, the artists relied heavily on the resources of CheonGhyeCheon, the central marketplace of Seoul where raw materials can not only be purchased and bargained over, but constructed into custom designs directly. To satisfy the requirement of a large-scale, outdoor installation in front of the gallery entrance, this group of artists built three huge flourescent diamonds.

Like the rest of Exhibition White, these diamonds were sublimely loaded with criticism of the huge industry and manipulative spectacle surrounding whiteness, the love trade, and its effect on cultural identity and gender. So subliminal, in fact, that their message was often lost in the glow of the bulbs, as many Korean girls took cell phone self-portraits in the harsh white light. The intrusion was felt by many, however, including a website that called them landed U.F.O.'s.
The diamonds remained up for 5 days.

Artists:
Kari Altmann, Kim Bentley, Adeetje Bouma, Viviana Cordova, Isak Chung, Claire Cochran, Candace Fong, Jiah Im, Soo Kang, Nara Park, Pete Razon, Yena Chang

The entire exhibition was awarded an unprecedented Ssamzie Co. sponsorship for its shipment and recreation in Baltimore.
These three original diamonds now belong to the permanent collection of the Ssamzie Art Warehouse Museum in Paju, Korea.