August 27, 2024
In February 2024, I visited Chiang Mai to spend a few weeks at Rirkrit’s house after opening my 2nd solo exhibition with Gallery VER in Bangkok, Thailand. This was my 4th time staying at Rirkrit’s Chiang Mai house (my previous visits were in January 2016, February 2018, and December 2019). After collaborating with Rirkrit on the last Jeju Biennale, I decided to write a book sharing the story of how I first met him in New York, hosting him and his work at my farmhouse in Jeju, and the many new relationships and conversations that arose thereafter. *The book is to be released in Korean in October and in English in December, 2024
During the biennale, I made a video interview with Rirkrit while he was cooking bingdduk, a traditional Jeju dish, at my farmhouse in Jeju. This video was later shown at a two-person exhibition I participated in last year in Fukuoka, Japan. For the new book, I decided to conduct a second interview with him. Serendipitously, the day of our conversation marks the one year anniversary of the end of the biennale. It was also the day after my birthday. Though it wasn’t necessary, I jokingly asked for the interview as my birthday gift.
Lewis Hyde, the author of “The Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World,” said that the gift moves from plenty to emptiness. I hope that this conversation flows to places to open up new thoughts and conversations.
This conversation was conducted in Tiravanija's study at Rirkrit Tiravanija's house in Chiang Mai, Thailand, on February 12th, 2024.
Image of Rirkrit’s dog Pinky in his Chiang Mai house (February, 2024)
Yujin Lee: What is your experience being an artistic director or a curator of international exhibitions, bringing all these artists together?
Rirkrit Tiravanija:
People who thought the biennale was interesting say that it was because the show addressed the place and the community. They're not talking about this nice object or that video. They're talking about the feeling that one is getting from being within the community, understanding the place. I think that's great. Art is giving them a bigger picture of the place. Nobody is coming and talking about this sculpture or that painting. They are saying how that thing was amazing because the river was next to it. They see the context of the work in relation to the place. That’s what curating should do. That's what art could be, opening people up to understand their environment, their place, their time, their condition, and their context.
I also did that in Okayama. There were thirty works that were alive every day. That's what the last documenta was, and people didn't understand it.
YL: I understood it!
RT: I didn’t go to documenta because I'd rather go see them in Indonesia. I'd rather go see them in the place they are. I don't need to see them in Germany like a kind of travel brochure. Maybe that's something to think about. But saying, “We are living beings. We are living art. We are living things. We are out there, and you don't even know us,” that's important. But I'm not invested in that every bloody thing I do has to be a relational art.
YL: I wanted to ask you about relational art, which I think my editor is not really into (laughs) because she prefers to make a book about relational art without talking about relational art. But you are one of the most important artists in relational aesthetics according to Nicola Bourriaud and the context of the 90s… But it has already been 30 years, and I wonder how you feel about that context and also where do you see it now, is it still relevant?
It's good that your editor thinks that we shouldn’t talk about relational art because I think everything is relational. I wouldn't want to talk about it as art. It's just relations, and that's what people don't understand. Again, it's like putting focus on an object, putting focus on art. Why not just talk about the relations, the experience, the feeling. Like the wind blowing through the room, even though you can't describe it, you know it. It doesn't have to be defined. It doesn't have to have a period of time. It’s always happening.
Most of us don't like the term. At least a lot of my friends. Also, I've never read the book so I have nothing to say really.
YL: The book is actually quite interesting.
RT: I'm sure, but I haven’t read it. Maybe I'll read it on my deathbed. (laughs) I’ll get around to it, but I don't need to see myself through someone else's thought on the one hand, on the other hand I also don't want to define things. It's good to have the kind of vocabulary, to say relational aesthetics or whatever. But I'm interested in just the relations, and the relation is commonly ongoing. So it's unnecessary to talk about relational art, but instead talk about living around an idea of art, being with art, or being with each other around art.
YL: Are there contemporary art that you find meaningful or inspiring?
RT: Yeah, of course. But then, I don't know if it's about art. It's more about people. It's about one's life, like Duchamp and the way he lived, or Gordon Matta-Clark and the way he died. I don't even talk about the work. I'm interested in how they lived and what they did in their life with their ideas. It's hard to say this work and that work did this and that for me. No, it's the person that did something to me. Again, I don't focus on one or two things. I focus on the bigger picture. The Fluxus art is interesting because they did things nobody even knows, but they did things. Nam June Paik did very important things for Korean art in a sense.
YL: Going back to your curatorial projects, it does seem like being a curator or organizing exhibitions allows you to focus on the big picture, creating a larger context by bringing all these artists together. Do you see it that way, and do you enjoy such curatorial endeavors?
RT: Yes, I enjoy it. I enjoy it because it's another way of thinking. It's also another way of putting out ideas. I hope people see those ideas through the work, through the artists.
I'm not trying to impress people with the work. I'm trying to impress people with the idea of the artists. It's very important that one sees things that are very different next to each other, which can make another idea. I think that's what curatorial should be.
YL: So much is happening in the world all the time, politically, socially, environmentally… and oftentimes art attempts and fails to address such issues. It seems like contemporary art and politics have a complicated relationship. Do you think it is important to address such issues in art? This question stems from a personal place because I often wonder where I belong in this big picture. How to be an artist in this situation is difficult for me.
RT: I think you should do what makes you happy. As long as you're not making decorations, I think you're okay. I make work about the things, the time, the places, and people that are around me. We are not really looking at the bigger picture. The biggest picture is that we're just thinking about ourselves in a kind of small world way. I was just saying this to someone, “We're in the 21st century, why are there still the problems that we have today?” Well, it’s basically humans being stupid. Why are humans more stupid now, after twenty centuries of learning, thinking, improving, and understanding in philosophy, in literature, etc?
Black onggi (traditional Jeju ceramic) that Rirkrit handmade for the Jeju Biennale. The onggi was made to be used throughout the biennale. The onggi in the photo are the ones that were accidentally broken. Yujin later repaired the broken ones by learning kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery. After the biennale, Rirkrit wanted to leave all the onggi at Next Door to the Museum and Yujin brought a few back to Rirkrit’s Chiang Mai house.
(February, 2024)
YL: Why?
RT: Because people are just stupid. (laugh) So just don't be stupid. Be sensible. One could easily say that about art. You look at some things and think, “That's really stupid.” Then you look at some other things and think, “Oh, that has an idea.” Again, I would say that it has to do with the life of the person. We respect the painting of Etel Adnan because of her life, of what she stands for, of what she's written, of what she's lived through. If someone else made those paintings, it's just some nice colors.
The importance of what it is is not because of what it is, it's because of who lived it, who made it, for whatever idea they had, and however form they had to put it out. Then hopefully, the idea will last.
YL: Some people don't like this word, but is it then about how genuine you are about what you are putting out there?
Well, you have to understand yourself first, then find yourself to make art. Everyone is different. Everyone does things differently. If you find yourself, and as long as you're making something that makes you happy… and happy doesn't mean it's not a struggle. Happy means that you found what you want to do, not something that you have to do. It's a different kind of having to do.
YL: What are your thoughts about the current trend of political activism in the artworld? The climate activists splattering soup onto the Mona Lisa, the pro-Palestinian protest that just happened in MoMA criticising the trustees who allegedly have investments into Israel’s military weapons, and many other cases of censorship around such topics.
RT: I would just say this. Erasing things is like denying your mistakes. Erasing people or things is not going to make you understand things better. Of course you need to be active and alert, but you can also go to places and help people or put money towards people who need it. Erasing things, that's the easy way.
YL: I think it's about putting pressure on people who have power to act.
RT: People who have power they all do a lot of shit. But if you look carefully around yourself first, you are probably supporting a lot of shit in the first place. For example, you shouldn't buy things from 7-Eleven because this is the company that pays low wages to grow pigs. The same company is selling GMO corn to feed the pigs. So stop going to 7-Eleven.
YL: There are many things you can do, but I guess some people choose to do it this way. And some institutions cancel shows.
RT: These are all short term thinking. It's the facade of being right.
YL: What do you think about such news in the art world? There are so many protests against contemporary art institutions and…
RT: There are always protests. Protest, but also stop expecting your art to be collected, stop expecting to put your art into those spaces, go and make another museum, go and do something else useful, use that time to actually make something real happen. I mean those institutions are your platforms.
YL: People who protest, I think they have something at stake because they are protesting against something that could potentially be their platform.
RT: The artists who are protesting are artists who don't have access to those platforms, so they can protest.
YL: What about the artists who have access?
I think they should use it. Use it to say what you think. Use it to share more information about the problem. There is no erasing in any of those things. I just want to say this. If you feel that the world is wrong in a certain way, then live the right way. It's not about protests. It's not about screaming. If you feel the world is wrong, then make your art the right way. When I say to people, “Don't compromise,” you start from the beginning. Don't compromise from the beginning, and if you don't compromise from the beginning, you probably won't be an artist anyway.
YL: Wait, if you don't compromise from the beginning, you won't be an artist?
RT: Yeah, because artists today are highly compromised.
YL: Do you see yourself like that too?
RT: Yeah, I made a lot of compromises for sure. But I compromise in a way to say certain things. My feeling is that if they refuse to do this or that, that reveals something about them, you know? And I want to show that that is what they are doing, rather than stopping before they even show themselves. For them to learn and understand that they are the problem.
YL: And what do they say?
RT: They understand.
YL: But they still do it?
RT: Yeah. Well, it's not completely useless. I mean there's a kid from Yale who wants to talk to me about it. (laughs)
YL: Yes, the genius. (laughs)
RT: When you compromise, and it just becomes decoration, then it's useless. But if the compromise still sits there and questions itself, then maybe it's useful. People just don't seem to understand the usefulness of doing things, and how it is better to not do anything, if it's useless.
Yujin's last day at Rirkrit’s Chiang Mai house (February, 2024)
YL: Personally, I'm very happy to hear that you are planning to spend more time in Asia. What does it mean to move back to Asia? Does it make a difference or is it simply returning home for you?
RT: Well, I hope whatever I do makes a difference. You should walk over next door to see Kamin. He is really conscious. He is really trying. It's the way he is. It's the way his ego is. All the questions you asked me, they are relevant to him too. He can't stand injustices. I can't stand injustices. Both of us agree on everything, but we have two different ways of dealing with it. He needs to tell people how to think. I don't.
I want people to think, but I don't want to tell them how to think. I want people to come to their own solution. It may take a long time, and many political people can’t stand it. But it’s also kind of a western idea to impose what you think is correct on other people to make them all think correctly. Because how do you know that you are correct in the first place? The thing for me is that there is no correct. There are different paths of understanding, and that path is also a conflict of paths. But they are all paths towards something, and we should respect those different ways to go. The only way to respect those different ways to go is to give it time.
In Asia, there are different kinds of conflicts. Here, there is the speech problem, how we can't say things. But I don't really agree with that because we can speak. I can say things to all those people at the talk yesterday about what I think. Also, everyone already knows what I think, and everyone already agrees to that thought. So do we actually have to say it? Some say, if we can't say it, then it is not real. We know what's wrong. We all know. We all agree. So we need to say it. We need to live through it and change it. Yesterday, someone at the talk said, “We can't speak. We can't talk about the power.” But I thought, we are talking about it, here, in our community.
That's why communities are important, because we can have our own space, we can have our own thoughts, we can have our own discussions. And those discussions can also merge with other communities. It's important that we have our own structure and not fall into the pit of living under them, right?
I was in Turkey talking to people who are dealing with living under a dictatorship. They all said, “We have to just make our own neighborhood, make our own system,” so that they are not touched by the power. We should choose not to be touched by them. Not living in Bangkok is already one part of that. Living in the mountains is another. Being self-sustaining somewhere is a part of that too. There are alternatives and those alternatives stand against the hierarchy, establishment, or institutional structures.
YL: Thank you so much Rirkrit. Thank you for your time.
RT: Okay. Tomorrow they are coming for dinner at seven.
For Lunar New Year celebration, Yujin made tteokguk, a traditional Korean New Year's rice cake soup. The special guest was Mongolian artist Tuguldur Yondonjampts, Yujin's former classmate at Columbia University.
(February 10, 2024)
Rirkrit Tiravanija
Born in 1961 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija’s practice combines traditional object making, public and private performances, teaching, and other forms of public service and social action. Tiravanija is a professor at Columbia University School of the Arts and a founding member of Utopia Station, a collective of artists, art historians, and curators. He is also the co-founder of The Land Foundation located in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Yujin Lee
Born in 1986 in Daegu, South Korea, Yujin Lee is an artist and a collaborator who wears many other hats; she is a writer and translator, a caretaker of land and animals, as well as a host of an alternative artist residency that she began in 2019 at her farmhouse in Jeju Island, South Korea. yujinleeart.myportfolio.com @jejuanarchist
Lee was a collaborating curator for the 2022 Jeju Biennale, hosting Rirkrit Tiravanija's new site-specific work “untitled 2022 (submit to the black compost)” at her farmhouse turned artist residency, Next Door to the Museum.