User:Nairb.Idi9/Connect, BTS

Connect, BTS is a global art exhibition launched by South Korean boy band BTS and its label Big Hit Entertainment in January 2020, directed by curator Lee Dae-hyung and featuring various works of contemporary art. The project, which involves 22 artists and galleries opened in five cities (London, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Seoul and New York), is a collaboration of curators who "resonated with BTS' philosophy" and "aims to redefine the relationships between art and music, the material and immaterial, artists and their audiences, artists and artists, theory and practice."

Featured works

 * Catharsis (2019) by Jakob Kudsk Steensen – LED wall installation, video with synchronized 3D sound
 * Housed in the Serpentine Galleries in London, Catharsis is an installation of monolithic LED walls that play a 3.5 minute video of a "re-imagined old-growth forest ... undisturbed over hundreds of years," its 3D audio taken from the textures and sounds of North American forests. The video and audio together creates a digital simulation of a "virtual ecosystem." Its creator, Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen, needed "movement and physicality in creating works like Catharsis." The artwork, according to Steensen, aims at introducing the audience to "connecting to the natural environment and other species" through a "very performative living experience" as offered by Catharsis.


 * Rituals of Care (2020), curated by Stephanie Rosenthal and Noémie Solomon – performance art
 * Rituals of Care is a series of performances by a total of 17 artists, consisting of "experimental choreography, healing practices, sonic installations and collective gatherings." Hosted in the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin, Rituals serves as a portrayal of "radical acts of care and repair." The performance series' curator Stephanie Rosenthal believes that "we are in times where care and repair are two very important terms." In explaining the work, Rosenthal emphasized the location and historical significance of the performance's actual venue, the Martin-Gropius-Bau, which had gone through the first and second world war s and sits on the site of the Berlin Wall: "The building has a lot of wounds from the past ... The performances will also be an opportunity to have rituals which are healing rituals for the building."


 * Aerocene Pacha (2020) by Tomás Saraceno – solar-powered balloon
 * The Aerocene Pacha is a purely solar-powered balloon created by Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno, who already broke world records for the longest and most sustainable certified flights. Launched over the salt lake Salinas Grandes, the balloon was named after Saraceno's Aerocene Foundation and the word pacha, which is the Andean model of the cosmos. With the Aerocene Pacha, Saraceno tries to imagine a "new epoch ... a new period of time": not an Anthropocene Epoch, a period of drastic human influence over the planet such as climate change, but an "Aerocene Epoch," where humans can connect with "the planet, the sun, and the air."


 * Green, Yellow and Pink (2017) by Ann Veronica Janssens – light art installation
 * British artist Ann Veronica Janssens created the light art installation Green, Yellow and Pink in Berlin by using artificial mist and colored lights. For Connect, BTS, the artwork is housed in the Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul, South Korea, along with another work by Janssens, Rose (2007), and Beyond the Scene (2020) by Korean artist Yiyun Kang. Janssens described Green, Yellow and Pink as an artwork where "the boundaries of the hues fuse together to make different colors." She used the "effect of the light" to create an "indescribable experience" where one can "walk through the color and feel like you've become the color." Green, Yellow and Pink is contained in a space "where you don't feel the limit ... you are in the light, but you don't know where you are. You're become blind in the color and the light."


 * Rose (2007) by Ann Veronica Janssens – light art installation
 * Janssens's Rose consists of 7 light projectors forming a 7-point star and the space where the lights are housed is also filled with artificial mist. The work explores "the capacity of haze to give sculptural form to light."


 * Beyond the Scene (2020) by Yiyun Kang – projection mapping installation
 * Along with Janssens' Green, Yellow and Pink (2017) and Rose (2007), South Korean artist Yiyun Kang's Beyond the Scene is showcased in Seoul's Dongdaemun Design Plaza. Beyond the Scene is an installation wherein a 9.5 minute video of BTS's choreography is projected on surfaces through projection mapping. The video shows "anonymous and abstract" forms that, through time, "are brought together to populate the space."


 * New York Clearing (2020) by Antony Gormley – outdoor installation
 * Showcased in New York City's Brooklyn Bridge Park, British sculptor Antony Gormley's New York Clearing is a "drawing in space": it is a "serpentine" 50-foot tall installation consisting of an 18-kilometer long aluminium tubing "that loops and coils without beginning or end," like "a gargantuan metal tumbleweed." Gormley describes Clearing as "less an object than an experience. It's about energy. It's about making an energy field." Gormley adds: "It's an absolutely open work, and it depends on the participation of the viewer. In a way, this [Clearing] is a high energy field and the viewer, the viewer's body, becomes the figure in the ground of the work." In Clearing, Gormley concludes, "it's the body of the viewer that becomes, then, the subject of the work."

History
In January 2020, BTS launched "Connect, BTS", ahead of their upcoming studio album, Map of the Soul: 7. "Connect, BTS" is a global public art project involving 22 contemporary artists across five cities: London, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Seoul and New York. Galleries in these cities will host artistic events throughout January until the end of March. According to the "Connect, BTS" website, the project has been developed by international curators who "resonated with BTS' philosophy" and "aims to redefine the relationships between art and music, the material and immaterial, artists and their audiences, artists and artists, theory and practice." The project kicked off on January 14 at London's Serpentine Galleries with the launch of "Catharsis", a digital recreation of an ancient forest by Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen. Other works will include a "drawing in space" on New York's Brooklyn Bridge by British sculptor Antony Gormley using 11 kilometres of aluminium tubing. In Argentina, according to the BBC, Tomás Saraceno will "float" a human into the sky using a solar-powered balloon. In Seoul, the Dongdaemun Design Plaza will feature installations by British artist Ann Veronica Janssens and Korean artist Yiyun Kang which will be "re-imagining of BTS' signature dance movements" while a performance art program called "Rituals of Care" with 17 artists will be hosted in Berlin's Martin-Gropius-Bau.