Ungmang, catalog – (+.+) & <*

Front page

Double-page spread

Ungmang

exhibition catalog
2018
offset lithograph, sewn in sections with exposed spine
150 x 210 mm, 768 pp

Ungmang was Sasa[44]’s solo exhibition at the Ilmin Museum of Art, Seoul. It showed vast archives of artifacts and records related to the artist’s own everyday consumption, interpreted and presented with strategies drawn from both contemporary art and pop music production: sampling, remixing, appropriation and re-appropriation. The work asked questions about the nature of contemporary culture and the artist-as-consumer’s agency.

The catalog was conceived as an extension of the show, rather than a mere documentation. On one hand, it competes with the exhibition, presenting Sasa [44]’s projects in an alternative way; on the other, it supplements it with diverse essays about the artist and his work. The conservative-looking typography in a format reminiscent of old-fashioned monthly news magazines is in stark contrast with the playful graphic identity and the seemingly endless stream of pictures that show sneakers, drink bottles, messy streets, and food, food, food. The “spine” of the book without covers displays what may be the artist’s name messed up by an unidentified mistake, or certain abstract marks intended as such to reflect the title.