Directing curatorialship of
Seoyoung Kim

Curator's statement
A Radical Place developed collaboration programs to seek a sustainable model, in which this project is regarded as an extension of positive interactions with the demands and interests of the Berlin community. In the A Radical Place - directed programs (2011-2012), a lot of us have experienced various type of contexts and social space to discover cultural needs and interests. This also aims to share purposes and vision, which is enabling the emerging of brand-new perspective about the creation of art.
Then we raise the question; What is reality in contemporary art? While the technology we use, language, and art media are jutting into the context of unplanned, actual space, the reality for art in the art industry is made to allow only one angle from which we may observe. Should art be constantly attempting the possibility of implying meaning, we should look at contemporary art works based on a new value system, with a positive attitude. During the past two years, the project A Radical Place has been using the location of art works and their relation to the contextual meaning of the given locale as the tool of discovery, analysis and reconstruction, in order to find art or what may be art in Berlin, Germany. The reason why we now introduce the works that have been created at Berlin during the project period in the form of an exhibition, a publication, an archive, a documentation and a film, is because although these pieces have harnessed the space and time that appear on the surface through the locations and their contexts, they still harbor yet another dimension where the concept of art merges with form. Therefore, we intend to analyze, by categorization, the correlation between the role of an artist and the medium used for creation through the project A Radical Place.

About this project
A Radical Place - project based curatorial research focuses on local issues, hybrid culture and artistic forms. The objective is to expand the concept of public art projects, independent art communities and art industries, creating the concept of art necessary for mixing various elements and forming relationships. The clashes and connections between the constantly fluxing, living worlds and art, contexts and social spaces resemble artistic exchange and working processes - they allocate the moments of social encounter among people as beings who live ¡°here and now¡±. The agenda of this project is to excavate those very moments. Going a step further, the aim of this project is to introduce the process of discovery and creation throughout the exhaustion and completion found in instantaneous mediations and exchanges across on/off-line formats. This context can be understood as encounters from different perspectives or suggestions as extremities or excessiveness. From the strategic viewpoint of the international exchange project, we connect contemporary Korean art to Berlin, support new productions of artists who bring the local and global together, and develop the program into a long-term project (2011~2012, over a span of 2 years) that connects all the products coming from the project to local art scenes. Our mission includes continuously reinterpreting Korean aesthetics in reference to international art criticism and contemporary lifestyle, and expanding the foundation of domestic artists through traditional methods of support such as providing studios, working environments, securing financial support and establishing networks. Especially, "Berlin Explore" (2011) - a program that deals with region-specific issues in connection to the local communities and urban environments around Berlin - and "LPF Production" (2012) aims to customize Korean contemporary art in accordance with Berlin¡¯s local identity while seeking opportunities to stamp the presence of Korea art in the European art scene. Berlin is the site of ¡°cultural multiplicity,¡± and is also a central location for the international art circle as a transnational regional hub. The artists who are invited to the project will introduce new productions based in Berlin, and the results of various interactions produced according to the area, venue and context studied by the artist and curator has introduced on this website.