Art & Market. Project by Fokus Grupa.

Art&Market There is no art without consequences*

Art Contracts & Artist's Rights

We constantly, in this part of the world, complain that there is no [art]market. I think that's good because when it comes it won't be exactly what we have imagined.
Dan & Lia Perjovschi
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Art Contracts & Artist's Rights - Discussion

As a photographer speaking in terms of photography - these days, it is kind of funny having this conversation because ...
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Gentrification & Public Art

By the very structure of [museums] existence, it is a political institution. (…) The question of private or public funding of the institution does not affect this axiom. (…) In principle, the decisions of museum oficials, ideologically highly determined or receptive to the deviations of the norm, follow the boundaries set by their employers. These boundaries need not to be expressly stated in order to be operative. * Hans Hacke - All the art that's fit to show
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Gentrification & Public Art Discussion

These projects have been around for several years and had motivated creation of new alternative spaces. Now there exist around twenty to twenty-five alternative spaces, and what we're seeing with this development is that these alternative spaces have blended in with the communities and with it's own localities, and have also contributed to the development of the culture of these communities.
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Park Chaneung Interview

But I don't want Seoksu to be a popular place. I don't want Seoksu to be gentri∫ed. I want it to develop slowly, step by step, and mix the past and the future. I don't invite artists to make it more expensive. My dream is to convert the central space of the market into a place where the citizens can come and enjoy arts, and to make a harmonious relationship between citizens and artists. I thought that, if the government gives me the chance, I could make my dream come true.
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Woon-Gi Min Interview

I think artists' activities should be aimed toward these matters, like the New Town Plan, which are threatening people and their lives. But art is now mostly used to advertise the city's policy more than solving citizens' real problems.
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Paraphrase of a sentence from a piece by Croatian post-conceptual artist Mladen Stilinovic.

Mentions

Language barrier has been our big obstacle and challenge while working in Korea, exceptionally because of the nature of the work, and we would like to use this opportunity to apologize to all the participants in our project, for any misunderstanding that might have occurred in the translation. We would also like to thank SAP2009 organization team, Mr, Chaneung Park and Mr. Woon - Gi Min for their interviews, Soyean Goak for all the support she has given us, Mr. Kiyoung Peik... Minjae Song, Olesya Baranova, Woolim Kim, Ko Eun Choy and Younghwa Seok for their friendship and help, Zana Šaškin for the lectorship of english texts, Iva Prosoli and Leenie McEvily for their help with the reading materials, IWO volunteers for their help in living and working needs and everyone else.

In regard to copyrights

If you find any part of the text relevant for your own use you may use it as a part or as a whole but please attribute it by linking to the web page of the project or by providing the information in the footnote.
Thank you

Fokus Grupa

Art&Market

Introduction:

Art&Market Project is a collaborative project made during SAP2009 residency program held at the old open - type Korean market - in Seoksu, a periphery of the Anyang city which itself is a part of wider Seoul metropolitan area. The SAP2009 residency program explained in its application guidelines that the location and the context of the residency is the old, low income populated Seoksu market which is planned to be destroyed by the urban redevelopment project led by the city of Anyang.

Our initial proposal was to continue our work and research we have been working on previously and which was engaged in the relationships of art and art legislatives, as well as relationships of art and market. This was our starting point, but we also considered some changes to the project after the introduction with the locality of the SAP2009 residency program. After we came and spent some time in the area, as well as started our research, we got introduced to the local issues that shifted the direction of our project to a more site specific one. The project we realized in the course of two months consists of two forums open to the public which were held at the Stone&Water Gallery. First forum was titled Art Contracts & Artists Rights and it explored the legal rights of authors in transactions of ownership of their work, as well as the positions art takes in relation to the market. The second forum was titled Gentrification & Public Art and it explored the public space as politically charged one, as well as public art - a practice that participates in the social realm and is thus exceptionally responsible for the consequences of its actions - but it also explored the possible subversive political potential of arts.
The presentation of the texts was followed by the discussions with the audience and invited guests. Another part of our project, which was meant to address the local experiences and issues in regard to the gentrification processes and public art, were two interviews we made with directors of two alternative art spaces in Korea. Our approach to the SAP2009 project was to initiate discussions about the position of arts within the social and economical processes, to work on recontextualization of art itself, as well as to provoke critical thinking about the public space and relations of power inherent in it.

The last part of our project consists of the documentation presented in two forms, one being this website and another being the newspapers that both document and further the communication started trough our research.

This project is not a finished work, as well as it is not a finished research, it is simply a stage for discussion and exchange of the ideas related to these topics. It is our plan to further our research within these topics and this is in many ways just a first step. We have tried, among other things, to define our own parameters in which we are willing to participate in the art world.