Selected by Hyunjin Kim
Artist collective Part-time Suite work with installation, documentary, photography, drawing, performance, workshops and other methods. Their first series of projects (in 2009), which included Under Interior, Off-off-stage and Loop the Loop earned attention as a rare example of self-organisation by a younger generation of artists in Seoul, revealing and exploring several different locations in the city that were marginalised, physically, aesthetically and socio-economically. The artists rented dark or castoff spaces – basements, vacant lots, the disregarded rooftop of a small manufacturing plant – for around one or two months at a time with funds amassed from their own part-time jobs. They used these sites firstly as temporary private studios in which to investigate, produce, curate and organise, and finally as a public space for audiences to visit and experience the particularity of each site. The projects symbolised a glimmer of hope for the precarious sense of feeling adrift within Korean society’s economic structure and the institutional environment of the art world: they included flooding a mildew-ridden basement to exaggerate its humidity, (Under Interior); installing a feebly-blinking light in a dark, abandoned lot in the middle of the city centre, turning it into a form of stage set, (Off-off-stage); and a video performance in which members strung their bodies together with rope and walked on the edge of the precarious railing on top of an old building (Loop the Loop).
In place of producing physical objects the collective have often focused instead on their own physical labour, engaging in activities similar to those of a small-scale industry, such as rug weaving or pounding-down cement by foot, the collective’s emphasis on immaterial artistic practice is strongly bound to ideas surrounding labour economics. They have also organised film screenings, debates, and other activities that serve to unite their local art community. Drop by Then (2010), featured projects made during a road trip near North Korea’s Demilitarised Zone. Their most recent work, The Ballad of Real Estates (2015) was made during a trip to Spain and continues the collective’s interest in marginalised urban space by exploring areas that included those squatted or occupied, in cities such as Madrid, Seseña, Málaga and Granada. Welcoming these newly encountered communities, that stand in contrast to some of today’s more inhumane social structures, what Part-time Suite consistently creates is something that is both experimental and poetic.
Part-time Suite are a collective, initially of three (Byoungjee Lee, Jaeyoung Park and Miyeon Lee) who formed as graduating students in Seoul, South Korea in 2009. They have been operating as a duo (without Byoungjee Lee) since 2013.
This article was first published in the January & February 2016 issue of ArtReview.
