Art Basel
Hong-Kong (HK)
2016

Arirang project

Arirang Partitition is composed of a wooden piano and musi- cal scores torn vertically. The piano is entirely sanded down on the left-hand side and hand-carved on the right-hand side. The musical instrument is thus rendered naked, stripped by these two processes. The patterns left visible by the decoration depict scenes and motifs belonging to the traditional iconography and history of Korea.
The piano is accompanied by scores of Arirang popular music of the time of the united Korea. Today, both North Korea and South Korea claim it as their inheritance and each makes it an emblem of their identity. In the North, historical frescoes in the form of moving paintings in stadia, used as Party propaganda tools, are called Arirang. In the South, Arirang has remained popular singing, as well as a national television channel and the name of a traditional cake.
The torn-up score is performed by a pianist, leaving the missing parts to penetrate the memory that everyone has of this piece of music.

Excerpt from Press release

The torn scores of Arirang popular music, refer to the shared culture tradition of North and South Korea before the partition, which are today object of political claims. Récolte Rouge (Red Harvest) alludes to the connection between the harvest of the para rubber tree in colonial times and revolt, as the Communist protest movements were largely started among labourers/harvesters exploited by the colonial settlers. The silk screen prints, named Le Gris des Herbicides (The grey of the herbicides) , recall, in an abstract way, the US Army's spreading of defoliants during the Vietnam War, by using the six colour codes of these defoliants in different combinations to achieve different shades of grey.