Flushing - RICE

I got off 7 train and arrived Flushing without any inkling of what I was about to see... This scene of 'little Asia' in Flushing brought so many memories back in Korea. Busy streets, street food and carts, kitsch music and buses.

Re-presenting, re-contextualizing the 'culture's have been vital in contemporary art making within the context of globalization, identity diaspora. Well, here... I wondered if any of that really mattered. This thick aroma of 'culture' that cannot ever be reproduced was enough for me as a justification in its existence.

Artforum article describes Jung Hee Choi's performance RICE like this:

A hypnotic projection of rotating mandalic forms radiated out from Zazeela’s magenta color field like silent fireworks, while the sound of Choi tracing a circle around the top of an overturned cooking pot with a rice paddle created a single repeating tone that resonated deep in the solar plexus. - Artforum

I picked up a reserved ticket at the Guggenheim box office, went up to the 4th floor... and there was a room with mystic magenta lighting and projection of 'rice,' hypnotic series of radiance. A few cushions were spread out around the room... the audience was asked to take off the shoes and wait for the performance in silence. Much of anticipation built up... because it seemed something of the other, oriental and mystical... you know.

Then the artist came to the stage in a black dress, and started to trace a circle on a top of cooking pot. I started to become a lot more aware of a sound of friction. The audience was quiet - some seemed to be meditating, some fell asleep. It just went on like that for over an hour. She finished and sat right next to her mentor in the audience. No direction or access to what it is that was going on -

I left the performance with a perplexed train of thought. Is it my shortcoming in understanding the performance and sound piece? But there was no accessibility for me to engage, I felt frustrated if not looked down upon for still 'not getting' it. To me, the piece was perhaps beautiful, but an isolated ritual that required a pretentious concentration/meditation from the audience to exude this aura of transcendent experience.