On Distant Objects And Hungry Gods

On October 3 I’ll be moving to S.Korea to work on my new project “On Distant Objects And Hungry Gods”. My new work will revolve around Korean shamanism (musok) and the female South Korean shamans (mansin, meaning ten thousand spirits, the potential number a good shaman is able to contact) who perform these rituals. Musok is considered an ancient and indigenous practice, dating back a few thousand years. Before Buddha, Confucius, Lao-tzu and Jesus, these women plied their trade in Korea, mediating between humans, objects, and supernatural entities. I see a decisive parallelism between Korean shamanism rituals and new mystical and ethnographical directions in contemporary art, and I believe there’s a synergy between the energy of the mansin and the energy of the universe.

This project is kindly supported by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea and the Mondriaan Funds