Flat Flat Shiny Cat

Son and Reardon’s work for the Korean Cultural Centre, UK (KCCUK) is shaped by the work being shown is in a cultural centre as it is by the timing of when it is being shown as it is by artist Choi Jeong-hwa’s interior design of the KCCUK. Son and Reardon’s engagement with the Centre is context specific and as with much of their work, works what is given. Their engagement with the KCCUK and maybe where they share an interest with Choi in scenography and certain kinds of vernacular forms led them to thinking through questions of horizontality and superficiality. Horizontality: lacking in depth. On the same plane as other things. In the case of the KCCUK, an equivalence between what is given and what they bring into the Centre. Superficiality: Existing or occurring at or on the surface. Appearing to be true or real only until examined more closely. In the case of the KCCUK, a belonging of something that simultaneously reveals it not to belong or to belong temporarily. Located at one corner of Trafalgar Square in a prime tourist area, the KCCUK is a multi-purpose space containing places for exhibition. it hosts, among other things, a number cultural programmes providing an introduction to Korea, its culture, history and language. The work - scheduled as it is for December when London is at the peak of its commercial excess - looks for a different rhythm and focus during this festive period. One that is more about slowness, effort, rhythm, about trying to sustain something in the face of near collapse. About what Art Historian Christine Ross describes as a “depressive enactment…” (The Aesthetics of Disengagement, 2005). They are thinking about rhythm in relation to architecture, people, things, and events. And about how almost everything can be said to have rhythm of some kind; something which maybe becomes obvious when it is perceived to be lost, broken, or out of tune. In other words, to fall outside - temporarily or permanently – a particular order, understanding and, or expectation of things and how things work. This interest extends to the physical location of the KCCUK and by what is given; in the relationship between the KCCUK and its immediate surrounding environment and with the city more generally. They are also influenced by writer Matthew Stadler’s essay Pure Surface: Red76 and Ghosttown in which he writes “The ascendancy of surface and complete unintelligibility of depth goes some way toward explaining why art practices, once comfortably confined by conceptual and formal boundaries—including, crucially, the authority of the artist (the better to channel the artist’s meanings upward to the critics and curators who could view them from on high, or downward into the pleasing shadow land of the artist’s psyche)—now spread ravenously outward, indifferent to biography or locale, staging themselves serially across a vast horizontal plane of interchangeable actors and opportunities: the museum, a storefront, your bedroom, online, a scrap of paper. All blossom as sites of meaning [...] The ascendency of the horizontal—and note the absurd paradox of this formulation— is a turn that completely changes the possibilities and conduct of meaningful artistic practice. If we are witnessing a repudiation of depth and verticality as viable modes of thought or being, this marks an important shift in the history of art, a turn with enormous political and artistic implications”. A consequence of their approach to working with what is given and how they add to, effect and alter this generates relationships between things – whether already existing things or things made and installed for the duration of their work in the KCC – and how these things are present, visible, tangible. In this way, a large part of the Centre becomes an active element of the work. The ‘unused’ space of the KCC becomes as significant as the ‘used’ space of the KCC as its character, construction and design invites this kind of intervention where different materials, spaces and realities coexist. While a few pieces of Son and Reardon’s existing work are used here, most of the work installed in the space of the KCCUK is made specifically for this space. Some parts of the installation… Flat Flat Shiny Cat is the title of the installation at the KCCUK and also a piece of work in its own right. A typographical sign, one with as much weight and significance as the other work installed in the KCCUK. Thinking about the city as scenography, a movement therapist working with an Astra hoop spins and twirls on a specially elevated platform in a slightly restricted corridor space to a random passing public who can watch through the window without being required to enter the KCCUK. In a small room visible through the window of the KCCUK, a simulated ruin is made from an already existing painted metal water tank. This made by replicating the water tank in wood and paint. Dimensions; 312cm x 63.4cm x 87.5cm Globe is a looped video which plays on a cube-shaped monitor, features a large slowly revolving oversized globe which emits a grating sound as it revolves A set of nine drawings are included as well as a large floor work in the ‘multi-purpose space of the KCCUK An off-site work can be found in Han Kang restaurant on Hanway Street near Tottenham Court Road. This is an ongoing piece of work Son and Reardon began in 2015. It consists of collection of flags, each containing a single word in brown on a brown background Hyemin Son born in South Korea, Hyemin Son lives and works in Seoul. Her work explores the interrelationship between everyday life, action and the imaginary as located predominantly in the urban cityscape. In a playful manner, Son constructs gatherings, performances and happenings designed to create tensions and ruptures between an artists' intention and the situation as it unfolds. John Reardon makes single and co-authored work, work under a shared name or title, as well as anonymous work. Reardon is interested in how a public is constituted through art and how art is made public. Hyemin Son and John Reardon work together as the Minor adjustment collective. This includes the shared production and authoring - often with invited guests - of performance, object and installation work. Their collective work is shaped by an abiding interest in a precarious kind of materiality or vernacular and in the conditions in which work enters the public domain and in how it is shaped and behaves under these conditions.