missing link

#exhibition #performance

Image©️Joana Linda

“All we can say is that, sometime after half the day has passed and before it becomes completely dark again, Lee draws a line different from yesterday.”

In missing link, Minjin Lee draws onto the exhibition space the senses of time and space accumulated through his practice in the performing arts. As a dancer who has continued to work primarily in performance venues and theatres, where the duration of a work is set by each performance, Lee finds the vacuum-like exhibition space—where time can feel as though it is not passing at all—relatively unfamiliar. Confronted with conditions different from those she has known, such as the exhibition space’s comparatively extended opening hours and the unpredictable viewpoints of its visitors, Lee remains attentive to the subtle gap between these conditions and the temporality familiar to both the space and his own body. Within this gap, she establishes an independent pace and direction of time, out of sync with the various temporal flows of those who constitute the exhibition space. These set speeds and directions are marked throughout the exhibition space, while his attitude of resisting being drawn into the complexities of the world around him extends into performance.

Rather than planning and controlling the passage of time, Lee finds the link between the exhibition space and his body by making moment-to-moment sensory decisions—determining the direction of each line and the speed at which it is drawn. Through this process, a link with the world is formed only within a fleeting instant. By repeatedly drawing lines, she builds shallow barriers; at other times, she leaves behind only very low lines, forming temporary relationships with the space. The map she leaves behind is both a testament to time accumulated over more than a hundred years, and, conversely, an outline of the empty spaces where lines will gradually be drawn tomorrow, the day after, or further into the future.

At HOLE, there is no way to promise when you will encounter Minjin Lee’s performance. All we can say is that, sometime after half the day has passed and before it becomes completely dark again, Lee draws a line different from yesterday.

Rather than closely following Lee’s timeline as she draws lines in the sand, attempting to make your respective times meet, it may be wiser for visitors to gauge the moment when the sunset inside the exhibition space and the sunset outside briefly overlap.

Text: Somi Lee

https://adocs.co/books/hole/

HOLE
Curation: Somi Lee
Co-curation: Alter Kim
Participating Artists: Unghyun Kim, Ahri Song, Minjin Lee, HWI
Poster Design: Jaehoon Choi
Installation: Shampoo
Costume for ‘missing link’: Hojin Jeong

Supported by 2021 Multidisciplinary Arts Activity Support – REBOOT Program, Arts Council Korea

Exhibition:
20 November — 4 December 2021 –Windmill, Seoul, South Korea