Atta Kim, The Museum Project 011, from the series Field, 1997
This project depicts a nude figure and a cat contained in separate glass boxes that lie on a road beside the ocean. The scene is peaceful. The nude figure and white cat can make things pure and natural, like merging with nature. That’s why they lie beside the ocean. The artist wants to show that they are close to the natural, but by using the transparent boxes to contain the cat and the woman, the artist wants to express there is still have the “invisible” protection cover protecting them.
The transparent box-shaped containers play a key role in this project, heightening the viewer’s awareness of the relationship between observer and object and creating a space where living objects are enshrined.
However, why the artist needs to use the transparent box to contain the figure and the cat? Seems the artist wants to express the idea of the relation between privacy and open to public, and addresses issues of surveillance, alienation, vulnerability.
In society, we have many rights to do many things, however, everyone also has privacy to protect himself/ herself. A person, no matter how he does not to gloss over himself and opened to everyone, at least there might have something he does not want anyone to know, so-called self-protection.
Therefore, no matter how you want to open your heart to someone or to the world, there will have something hidden. This is the contradiction. Just like the photo in the above. No matter how the figure close to the ocean, close to the nature, and no matter how she is nude or not, but there is also a transparent glass box cover her. In addition, her posture is expressing the sense of self-protection. From this posture, the artist wants to address the issues of surveillance, alienation, vulnerability. The box like the barrier between one and other, this is the alienation between people. That’s why the artist needs to contain the human and the cat separately. And because of vulnerability, so people want to protect themselves and hide themselves just like the one in the photo.
The contemporary art scene is ever ripe with innovative concepts and technologies that inspire artists to push the boundaries of their own work.
