MARTIN J TICKNER
CREATIVE / ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
LIMINALITY [START DREAMING]
SEULGI KANG
'The Structure Of A History'
MARTIN SEXTON
'Indestructible Truth' (1957, 2010, 2020…)
SEULGI KANG
‘The structure of a history’, 2020
Performance / video / installation
CIRCA ART X DAZED
Simultaneously shown 28 September 2021 at 20.21
LONDON - Piccadilly Lights
SEOUL - Coex K-POP Square
TOKYO - Yunika Vision
‘The structure of a history’, is not for, but in part, a recourse to the sudden tragedy that set us on new rules and norms and the uncomfortable behaviours and life patterns that were not dared to be imagined before such a situation, which are now compromised from what we are used to, presenting itself in a different shape, that will show up again, and again, in a different shape.'
The world Kang confronts at the dining table, she creates, at first normal, everyday, ever-changing, builds to a now stinking and disgusting place, however, as she sits there, she engages in a liminal response to an unforeseen situation and environment. We become in the presence of how she, and ultimately we, deal with an evolutionary structural, physical, mental and emotional decay. But also, survival and pleasure, an understanding and confronting, and in that, there is also a beauty in what prevails, in the process of tracing the structure of a history.
Seulgi Kang’s work deals with breaking down the simplicity and complexity of the ‘every day’, which, as so fundamental and common or uncommon, it is overlooked. Through the variation of ‘every day’, she questions her and our environment, the rudimentary balance of structure and subconscious rules, that for her seem to have already been granted, by default. Expressing circumstances surrounding a moment, where she is, she uses mundane objects and materials to create complex and nuanced performance films that are informed by poetry, history and human emotions. She dismantles and reconstructs form, space and function, embodying meaning to familiar form and actions which everyone engages in, anyone can do, or does.
Seulgi Kang studied BA Hons Craft Design, Junnam National University, South Korea and has MA Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art. She has worked and exhibited in Seoul, Berlin, London and a recent residency in Estonia.
MARTIN SEXTON
‘INDESTRUCTIBLE TRUTH’ (1957, 2010, 2020…)
‘COGNITIVE DISSONANCE’ (1973, 1994, 2020…)
Martin Sexton’s ‘Indestructible Truth’ a Tibet UFO film that also reveals the mythical Shambhala – appears to be shot in a distant past, is watched in the viewers present, yet reveals an object (UFO) or portent from the future. Sexton’s work is often presented in the self-styled form of a: ‘Futique’ – described as a collectible work of the future – Futique being a portmanteau of: future/critique/antique and permeates through much of his practice – including specifically his levitation experiments, crop circles and UFO films.
Martin Sexton is an Irish writer, filmmaker and artist, based in London. Yet he describes all his work in whatsoever medium as writing – when this extension of his writing manifests into objects, it is in unconventional material, such as: 4.5 billion year old meteorites, volcanic obsidian – or he is writing in ice – such as his large series of temporal ice poem installations – one marking the exact grave of William Blake for the very first time on his 250th anniversary or for Milton on his 400th. In his large scale installations or immersive Futique ‘UFO’ films, he merges the quantum with the secular world in explorations of the esoteric and outer limits of consciousness. When his work encompasses his sonic experiments – real levitation -in scientific peer-reviewed experiments, he is levitating objects in a laboratory with his long time collaborator and friend the physics professor Dr Deak using sound or acoustic levitation- or in his collaborative soundtracks – it becomes resonant with the critic Walter Pater’s statement that:
“all art constantly aspires to the condition of music”