Loading

Harlem Paper Airplane Project

Kim, Seung Young and 김승영2000

Korean Art Museum Association

Korean Art Museum Association
Seoul, South Korea

Artist's NoteThe first time I visited Harlem, a neighbourhood whose image is plagued by prejudice and fear, it was six months into my stay in New York. A few days after that first visit I went back, and on a grass field in a local park I started to make paper airplanes. The streets were quieter and more peaceful than I had imagined, and I desired to interact with the local people. The paper I used to fold the paper airplanes was the type used for writing Braille. The papers had the phrase "Why do we fear love" written on them in Braille. As I starred to fold and fly the paper airplanes a couple of kids came to join me. And before I knew it the park was filled with people folding and flying paper airplanes! Before long the grass was covered with white planes that had flown through the Harlem skies. One woman called, " Where is this place?" Then someone called back, "This is the peace Airport!" Hearing him say that I imagined he must have felt peace and happiness flying those planes under that bright sky. As I listened to this, the most beautiful conversation I have ever heard, I could hear my own high walls of fear and prejudice crumble away.

Details

  • Title: Harlem Paper Airplane Project
  • Creator: Kim, Seung Young, 김승영
  • Creator Lifespan: 1963
  • Creator Nationality: Korean
  • Creator Birth Place: Seoul, Korea
  • Date Created: 2000
  • Physical Dimensions: w250 x h760 cm
  • Type: Media, Installation
  • Medium: C-print
  • Korean Artist Project: Kim, Seung Young is one of 21 outstanding artists selected by the Korean Artist Project. The Korean Artist Project is a global online website which aims to promote Korean contemporary artists hosted by the Ministy of Culture, Sports, and Tourism of Korea and organized by the Korean Art Museum Association. KAP has launched with a three-year plan spanning from 2011 to 2013. At the first step in 2011, art professionals and critics selected 21 artists, and curators from 13 private art museums organized their virtual solo exhibitions. KAP would love to introduce a diverse spectrum of Korean contemporary art to the global audience. Through these efforts, KAP will play a significant role in the promotion and development of Korean contemporary art. Also, the KAP will become a useful platform, which will serve as a stepping-stone to create cultural exchange and global networks with diverse art people. Please visit www.koreanartistproject.com
  • Critic's Note: Fragmentary Memories Dreaming of Communication beyond Space and Time In Kim's work the wisdom and reason of fundamental being and a metaphor for this appear brilliant, beyond any distinction between nature and civilization, reason and sensibility, intellectual and perceptual worlds. Kim's intentions to provoke and share the world with metamorphoses and new effects are intentional and work multi-dimensionally. Kim's work appropriates the products of capitalistic industrial society, though not its superficiality or banal representations of society. Kim borrows some urban daily aspects in his work. He invites an abstruse meaning of life, tracing cultures he had met by chance at a serene Buddhist temple. Kim's work reminds us of the dignity and mysticism of fresh life forms discovered in unknown plants and insects. Like relics, his work recalls traces of human life and the weight and meaning of cultural memories. It also shows lucid dewdrops formed on the leaves of grass, and let us hear the wind sound from a wind chime hanging under the eaves. These elements have magical power to revive our senses of sight, hearing, touch, and smell. His work does not ride on modern artistic discourse highlighting visual truth or physical elucidation of art, or Marshal McLuhan's concept of the age of electronic technology. In Kim's work the wisdom and reason of fundamental being and a metaphor for this appear brilliant, beyond any distinction between nature and civilization, reason and sensibility, intellectual and perceptual worlds. (This is an excerpt from an original text.)
  • Artist's Education: Hongik University. Seoul, Korea. B.F.A., M.F.A. Sculpture

Additional Items

Get the app

Explore museums and play with Art Transfer, Pocket Galleries, Art Selfie, and more

Flash this QR Code to get the app
Google apps