It is not every day that two students ask for a tutorial to discuss "some things" and in under an hour are able to convince me that I should become involved in curating an international contemporary art exhibition in Asia from scratch in a little over 10 months. One of those students, Lee Jiyoon, is now the co-curator of London Underground Seoul and Taipei.
First stop, dinner at Malones the subterranean Irish restaurant in the heart of London's gallery land, with the art school "barons," professors Eric Moody of City University's Department of Arts Policy and Management, Brian Falconbridge and Gerard Hemsworth of Goldsmiths College, University of London and Graham Crowley of the Royal College of Art.
This crucial meeting hatched a theme and a title. The show would be about London as an art (market) capital -- city of innovation and creativity. It would open in Seoul, but would travel elsewhere in the region. Our artists need not be British but they had to have been educated and be living in the capital.
Finally, the work of art itself had to be well made and by the artist because we made a conscious decision to draw away from conceptualism. The title, London Underground, seemed to encompass these ideas; we were working out of London and, on many fronts, in opposition to current trends. Anyway, the best art has always been created out of the spotlight, underground so to speak.
"It can be done, Jiyoon," I said as we left the restaurant and looked out on the glittering displays in Cork Street's gallery windows filled with Piccaso sculptures, paintings by Matisse and works from the institutionalized avant-garde. "But remember, the art world is a deceptively rough place and we have yet to find the right artists, most of whom are tied to galleries. We need financial backing. We need institutional support. We..."
Before I could finish Jiyoon had waved down a taxi. "I have a meeting with Korean Air in half an hour," she said.
"Okie dokie, talk to you later."
When Korean Air agreed to sponsor the freight and British Airways the Business Class returns, our enterprise looked a little less like going to sea in a sieve.
The list of supporters grew in direct relation to our spiralling need for greater finance. The British Council and the Sungkok Art Museum in Korea backed the exhibition, due to the persuasive skills of Jiyoon, who communicated wonderfully with the arts officer, Yoomie Goh, and Professor Falconbridge, who presented a strong case for the exhibition to the British Ambassador.
I approached Nigel Kirkup of City University's Business School, The Art Newspaper, for which I am the Asia correspondent, and called up an old friend, Asia's premiere contemporary art dealer, Johnson Chang of Hanart, Hong Kong and Taipei. Support came from all these quarters and the dominoes started to fall, with Jiyoon securing sponsorship at the last gasp.
There is no exhibition without artists, and so Jiyoon and I, advised by the "barons," went in search of talent to match our requirements. We found a group of artists that will make the case in Asia for a creative London.
Most of the great artistic themes and movements are represented in this exhibition. Landscape is central to the work of Andrew Norris and Graham Crowley; popular culture to the works of Gerard Hemsworth, Simon Patterson, Eric Moody, David Mach and Tomoko Takahashi; narrative to the work of Don Bury and Jon Lewis; the metaphysical to the sculptures of Brian Falconbridge; and abstraction to the work of Sadie Murdoch. Now, for Taipei, we have another sculptor, Martin Westwood, and two installation artists, Goshka Macuga and Young-in Hong.
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