Counterattack: To See Back and Gaze Back

Bona Park - X Reverse

葉佳蓉 Zoe Yeh/curator

 

This spring in Ping-pong art space, Korean female artist Bona Park introduced her new work “X Reverse” to Taipei. The new work provided a new seeing experience to X again. In the first work of the X series, X was in an exhibition space with big glass windows, artist placed binoculars
in the room, audiences entered the room and look out the window to overlook people who live in the opposite building. Meanwhile, their behaviors are also viewed by the others. Through the arrangement of artwork, seers became the one being seen. What provide the chance to gaze were not the artworks, but the viewer’s self. When one intends to gaze the work, he/she turns himself/herself into something being seen. The work disappeared from the ex- hibition room, audiences became the variable factor by the time work is completed. This time in “X Reverse”, the re- verse refers to the swift of viewing position, audience are not looking “OUT” from the exhi- bition space, but look- ing “IN” to the gallery from outside. During the residence artist stayedin the gallery for couple weeks, she observed the neighbors: lottery seller, oldery by the corridor, dogs fooling around be- came the content in her GAZE. Through literal interpretation, she indicated what to see and where to see. Meanwhile, the audience experienced her daily life through sharing the visual experiences. When audiences tried to find the artist in the gallery, the text on the window gazes back to audiences, they are the stain in audiences’ gaze, providing effects in return to the act. The direction of seeing started to reverse after artist’s trigger, to “look in” and “look out” not necessarily become a dialogue, but to swift the direction we see is certainly an exchange. In the work, gaze becomes a chance to open dialogues, the work doesn’t provide anything to gaze, a materialized object of work doesn’t exist in the gallery, but one will find they are being gazed, and started to look for the owner of the gaze. Gaze becomes a tool, a tool to open communication and build relationship.

 

To read this article in Chinese, click here

 

ARTICLE INDEX / HOME