Civilization, the way we live now, MMCA Gwacheon, Circular gallery 1

Civilization is a group exhibition organized by both the MMCA and the Foundation of the Exhibition of Photography. This exhibition gathers photography and some video works from all around the world. The aim is to offer a contemporary vision of the world thought the notions of individuality global civilisation and masses with their social, economical and geographical issues.

The exhibition takes place in the first Circular Gallery of the museum. They organized the scenography of it in a very site specific installation.

I will briefly talk about each parts of the exhibition before finished with the scenography of it.

The exhibition is divided in 8 parts. Each part has its own space. In the order of the visit direction, the audience can see the first theme « Hive ».

Hive

This part is related to the word used by the New Yorker novelist Tom Wolfe. The artists show pictures of huge cities which look like a hive. With the globalization, cities turn to look more and more like megapolis and people start to leave the country side to join the city life.

This picture from Pablo Lopez Luz, Mexico, was, in my opinion, the one which illustrate the best this notion. This picture is not only showing us that the city is huge, it has something unrealistic, something violent and apocalyptic.

Persuasion

This part is related to the way masses communication, especially with advertising and marketing, control citizens. There was a video installation about Instagram, and also pictures that showed the confrontation of people and domination’s tools. This photograph from Mark Power shows a huge screen in a public place and the audience who is watching it. As the monitor take up most of the space on the image, it seems to dominate the people.

Alone Together

Here, most of the artworks were focused on the link between individuality and collectivity. There were a lots of photographs of praying people in religious places, but also of schools and work places. There was this photograph by Lauren Greenfield which showed five girls making themselves up. And for me it showed that this action, to make up, is something very individual and collective. People make up because they worry about the others looks.

Flow

One of the most typical idea we have when we talk about globalization is flow and movement. There were a lots of photographs of airports. There were also pictures of highways with long exposure time, using light painting. Those kind of images that we can see in history and geography manuels in high school.. But one of those artist had an interesting approach. He took a hazy picture to illustrate the movement of the city.

Olivo Berbieri

Control

The artwork that touched me more was a video made by David Maisel, Kydoimos, The Din of Battle. It was an experimental video that showed shots taken form the sky. And He made it look like a spiderweb.

Rupture

This part was more about war, borders. Marginal people who live in delinquency.

Escape

This part was more related to tourism and other form of entertainment. There was this picture from the artist Olaf Otto Becker, Greenland Series. It showed tourists taking pictures in this deserted landscape. This photograph is dreamlike. They could be walking on the moon. I could see in it the notion of escape because taking picture is a way to escape. But in that way, those photographs could also have been in the Rupture part of the exhibition, because we escape from somewhere to create a rupture. So I think that those last themes were very close together.

Next

In which kind of future are we going to ? There were a lots of artworks about science, and advanced space technology, and even robot. This part of the exhibition was a little bit disappointed because I think it was maybe too « simple », to easy to understand.

What makes the exhibition interesting and more rich, for me was the scenography. The planner used the circularity of the room to create a new kind of visit. As you can see on the plan here, the 4th first themes I had talk about were presented in the circular room. The Photographs were hanged on white metal panels. The 4 different orientations of the panels were related to each theme.

What was interesting with the use of the panel, instead of hanging photographs on the walls was that the audience can see different pictures in the same time and walk around them.

A photograph was hanged on the panel and the name and the title of the work ware located on the back of it. So it forced the audience to walk around the artworks.

Also, at least, I thought that all of those smaller themes inside of the big one « Civilisation » were related to each other. So the installation in the circular room mixed the artworks from different themes together.

Furthermore, as the theme is Civilization, we instinctively thing about globalization. The scenography and even the size of the exhibition hall reflect Earth. And as we visit the exhibition we turn around the artworks but it can gave this image that we are also turning around the world. And all the artworks come from different countries, so it gave us a « universal » point of view about how photographers see our world today.

That the reason why it was also more difficult to be captivated by the 4 others themes which wasn’t located in the circular room because the visit became more « normal ».

At least, this exhibition make me feel how the scenography is important and how it can make the exhibition more attractive. There were so many pictures from different artists that if it would have been presented in a normal way, it could have been really boring, as the parts out of the circular room.