An Audio Postcard from The 2023 Armory Show in New York City

https://youtu.be/M6FkFBdbxcI

BACKGROUND NOISE

A repetitive mechanical clomping and ambient crowd sounds.

SAMANTHA

This is the endless dancing of the mechanical puppet outside of Wusan Gallery’s booth at the 2023 Armory Show. Representing South Korean artists, the installation speaks to one of the summer’s major themes in the creative industries: the value of labor. 

BACKGROUND NOISE

Grows quieter and fades out as SAMANTHA speaks.

SAMANTHA

Inside the booth is Jasmine, the gallery’s translator, who introduces the work of Bae Young Seo Choi.

JASMINE

His artwork is mainly about capturing the process of labor.  

SAMANTHA

She indicates the framed papers hanging on the white wall. Each a rectangular void with a graphite sheen, ripped in several places.  

JASMINE

It’s  labeled the New York Times and then time on those. Um, so he draws millions of pencil or pen strokes onto the newspaper until the paper tears down so that he really captures that voidness almost of like intensive labor work of from making newspaper to his artwork himself so that like generally capturing that time and effort going on to these kind of artworks. 

SAMANTHA

But is the art for sale here doing the work it’s set out to do? Not according to South African artist Tuka Zanya. 

TUKA ZANYA

This is supposed to be one of the biggest art fairs in the world and being the Armory show, I feel like the art is not supposed to reach the people that it’s supposed to reach. It’s for the rich, it’s for the elite. The people that it’s supposed to do the work with and reach and heal and whatever, they don’t have access to. You know?