photo courtesy of Get This! Gallery
So r e p o s e opened. Thank you so much for those you came out to the opening reception. It was an amazing turn out with a wonderful audience. It's been already almost a week and half since the opening night... and I would like to share some stories behind the opening night.
1. Four hours of reception filled with people
Since next door gallery Saltworks opened one hour earlier with Jiha Moon's show, we also started having some audience around 6PM - an earlier opening than scheduled. Until the closing, so many people from arts community, Korean community, and others... came to see the show. Thanks to the facebook, I got to see some of my high school friends whom I hadn't seen for years.
2. My mom's friends -
They were so wonderful. Since my parents were deeply engaged with the show, my mother invited her Korean friends to the opening. Many of them came from Marietta with so much enthusiasm and love. Some of them had a difficult time finding the gallery since they rarely come to downtown Atlanta.
As soon as they entered the gallery, some of them handed me flowers, cards, and warm hand shakes... nodding and smiling with heartfelt congratulations. It was such an honor to have them at the opening... an audience who rarely gets to encounter contemporary art within such a context... a kind of audience that
Radcliffe Bailey once mentioned about during the interview with Jeremy Abernathy (burnaway). “Someone asked me the other day, ‘Radcliffe, how do we get more African Americans to come our art spaces?’ There’s a way to invite everybody. … Sometimes I drive out to Buford Highway, and I see whole different worlds out there. And when I see those worlds, I say, ‘You know what’s missing in the Atlanta art scene? The makeup of all these people.’”
It's interesting to talk about the demographics of art audience in Atlanta. Although it is one of most diverse cities with a growing number of nationalities, metro-Atlanta cityscape itself is compartmentalized, barely allowing
a natural social interaction amongst different ethnic communities. Having a portion of 1st generation Koreans drive to downtown for what is considered to be a very much of an 'American' event, to me, is just great. Not sure if they would come again, but I think they enjoyed their time.
3. Rainbow Rice Cake
It was a hit!
4. Guardian
Making sure that the main installation of shredded silk flowers remain untouched/destroyed... was essential during the opening. Lloyd and I talked about different approaches to this, and decided that any kind of 'warning label' front of the installation would interfere with the audience's interaction with the piece... which is essential for the show. So we had the guardians right next to the installation, helping the audience to be cautious of the pieces' fragility.
5. A Call and some tears and Jiha
Right before the opening, I got a call from one of my artist heroes(!!!), wishing me a good luck. Many hugs... some people were moved, especially the ones who were involved with the show. Jiha Moon stopped by the gallery after her opening night... she was so gracious to give me encouragements and we congratulated each other. It was such an honor to meet her and to have openings on the same night.
6. Beer was what I needed by the end of the night. ^_^
Some more photos of installation process.
Also a correction for the installation dimension. My calculation was completely off:
86x 2 inch lines is 172 inches / 12 =14.3 feet x 14 feet = 200.6 square feet of installation.
There have been some reviews on the show
r e p o s e by
Burnaway and
Examiner, and I realize that I need to reflect and elaborate more about the show on this blog for a richer conceptual understanding. In fact, the installation took its own life and evolved into something different and quite deeper than what I expected. I'll do that as I process more in the near future.
Last, but not least,
Dear Artists,
Please take care of your back, especially if your studio practice involves a lot of bending or sitting for a long time. I am currently struggling with a severe herniated disc and sciatica and it has been very difficult. Here is a link to Back Exercises 15 minutes per day.
- sciaticaed G.
