Part I. Workshop: May 24, 25, 26 & 30, 2006
Part II. Exhibition: May 24, 2006 - July 2, 2006
Opening: May 24 Wednesday, 2006, 6PM

Sponsored by Embassy of France in Korea, The Korean Airline, University of Seoul

Participating Artists and Institutions

Dr. Friedrich Meschede, Curator of Visual Arts, DAAD Büro Berlin, daadgalerie, Berlin, Germany
Kestutis Kuizinas, Director, Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius, Lithuania
November Paynter, Curator, Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul, Turkey
Perry Lowe, Director of Communications, Eyebeam, New York, USA
Choi Jeong-Hwa (Seoul, South Korea)
Vuk Cosic (Ljubljana, Slovenia)
M/M(Paris) (Paris, France)
Skart (Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro)
Sulki & Min(Seoul, South Korea)


Workshop I, May 24 Wed, 2-5PM
Dr. Friedrich Meschede, Curator of Visual Arts, DAAD Büro Berlin, daadgalerie, Berlin
“The Cultural Prosperity of Berlin and DAAD: Conditions for Active and Continuous Exchanges”

Kestutis Kuizinas, Director, Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius
“Conditions for Strategic Program Designing and Practice with the Local Community”

Workshop II, May 25, 2006, Thursday, 2-5PM
November Paynter, Curator, Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul
“Conditions for Inter-local Relationships with Oversees Institutions and Promotion of the Local Community”

Perry Lowe, Director of Communications, Eyebeam, New York
“Conditions for Practice and Distribution of Media Production”

Artists’ Talks, May 26, 2006, Friday, 2-4PM
Vuk Cosic, Skart, Sulki & Min

Artists’ Lectures I, May 26, 2006, Friday, 7-8PM,
Location: University of Seoul, University Center Conference Room
M/M(Paris), “Mirror and Conversation: Designing in Collaboration”

Artists’ Lectures II, May 30, 2006, Tuesday, 6-7PM
Choi Jeong-Hwa “Institutional Character and the Spatial Designing”


“Frame Builders” is a project planned in anticipation of the relocation of the Insa Art Space(IAS) of the Arts Council Korea(ARKO) to its new space. However, this is more than simply a celebration of physical relocation for the IAS. Primarily, the project deals with two tasks any public institution cannot help confronting after a relocation - the tasks of reinventing a new institutional identity and of communicating this new identity to the public. “Frame Builders” is thus composed of two parts.

The first is “Textual Matrix”, a workshop that pursues the inquiry into the activities of four contemporary art institutions worldwide. Stemming from practical queries on the functions and directions of the IAS, this workshop extends the internal issues of the IAS to broader issues surrounding the “art institution” in general and its searching for a new orientation, a new identity and a new function demanded by the art world. However, being the grounds for relations and interface, today’s public art institutions cannot but delineate clearer positions and strategically advance their activities within the cultural, socio–political and economic contexts sensitive to the specifics of the local and the contemporary culture. Pursuing the questions of what orientation art institutions choose under particular conditions and how to concretely approach their goals, the IAS has taken note of four overseas institutions for each focal point and position. Invited from Germany, Lithuania, Turkey, and the United States, these institutions have much in common such as that they are non-profit organizations supported by public funding and as nodes between art museums, art galleries, and alternative spaces that specialize in international networking, artist-in-residence programs, consultation and production. These institutions foster their own particular identities while maintaining a balanced interaction between the local and the global, the arts and the related fields, museums and alternative spaces, and forge their own unique public communities. The models of bold choice, experimentation, and specialized practice these institutions provide are important references in assessing the complex problems of the public and art institutions, the public in the arts, and the practical and productive functions of art institutions that the IAS and other organizations face.

“Visual Identity”, the second part of this project, begins with a questioning of the process of transformation and mediation that arises at the point where an identity of an institution or an artist is conceived, visualized, disseminated and communicated to the public. In the context of Frame Builders, this question is solidified in the visualization and communication of art institutional identities to the public. In professional terms the artists invited to this exhibition are graphic designers, web designers, exhibition space designers, and interior designers, yet it would be more suitable to call them ‘conceptual image producers’ exploring the interface between the public and the client. Throughout the IAS building, the five artists(groups) will show projects in various artistic formats such as the poster, panel, object, exhibition catalogue, magazine, various printed materials, video and the website. These artists advance the critical process through terminology easily understood by the public and directly transmittable into the public realm even as they express given core concepts. In this process works that used to be considered the illustration of already constructed concepts are transformed into dynamic processes of conceptual construction through the dialogue, collision, and modulation of ideas. Their works are manifested through each artist’s individual aesthetic philosophy in relation to their artistic integrities, conceptual understandings, political critiques, communication skills and open synthetic views.

This new understanding of creative interface has constituted an important transition in the consciousness of the Insa Art Space as well as in the process of visual identification and communication. “Frame Builders” is the IAS’s modest proposal calling for the invention of a new type of art institution that suits the needs and demands of the Korean contemporary art world. With this project the IAS will only build a conceptual framework. The contents of this framework, namely, the concretizing elements that structure identity, would be built by the IAS community from now on. IAS would anticipate the creative collaborative process of collision and modulation between the IAS and its community. Fundamentally, what is more important than the formal framework and the terminology employed in this project is to understand what underlies the framework of the IAS. In the art world this small phenomenon of “IAS” represents a specific collective of artists moving towards solidarity, collaboration, exchange of ideas, and the strong social undercurrents that are important to the return of the value of self-esteem and critical awareness. The true goal of this project is to invite those people who are sympathetic with these ideas and invite them to participate in this reinvention of the IAS by becoming “frame builders” and joining with the IAS community.


Relocation of the IAS
The Insa Art Space, founded in 2000 as one of the non-profit public art institutions under the umbrella of the Arts Council Korea, has provided its support to emerging artists in Korea. With the move to its current location in 2006, now it expands the function of archiving, research and development, workshops, publication, and production consultation. Despite the plenty talented artists, the art market boom, the heated discussions on diverse cultural policies, and the successes of local Biennales, the Korean contemporary art scene still suffers from the weak ground lacking the research, development, collaborations and circulation. The IAS examines the blanks that the current structure of art spaces(such as art museums, galleries, and alternative spaces) has failed to fill in and suggests to take the role of linking the missing ends and complementing the highly demanded, yet unfulfilled roles. By being responsible for long-term based, process-oriented activities, the IAS seeks to provide a physical and conceptual infrastructure that supports cultural producers with discussions, exchanges of ideas and collaborative practices.

Choi Jung-Hwa led the art direction of renovating for the IAS. Choi focused on creating a harmonious exterior to complement the nearby Bukchon village which is renowned for its traditional Korean-heritage houses. The existing brick wall was to remain untouched, and the front door is covered in a mirrored surface in entirety. The interior structure is kept simple, but the contrast between natural light and cement adds a fun and dramatic character to the interior space. Choi’s unique understanding of materials and his Dadaist wit come to the fore in the chandelier which is made of eighteen recycled car headlights on the third floor and a cherry tree planted on the rooftop.