24

Really quickly.

The other day I went to the New Museum down in Bowery with Evelyn and Emerson. They had a main exhibition titled "Unmonumental," which was uh ... just that. Didn't do it for me I guess. It's supposedly a multiple-part exhibition where more and more things will be added to it, and we had only seen the first phase, so that might be why. Oh well.

Down in the lobby though, there's was big room with glass walls next to the café, where there were seven screens that flashed black text. It was "Black on White, Gray Ascending," an installation by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries (website here).

Bossa Nova music composed by YHCHI played in the background while seven different takes on the same mystery/murder story scrolled on each of the screens. The text, which was some kind of monospace font, was synched with the music so it was visuo-aural experience. I found it quite amazing. I couldn't get any photos because I'm still feeling self-conscious with my ginormous D40, but if you take a look at his works you can kind of get an idea of how it was. Just look at these:

BUST DOWN THE DOORS!
NIPPON
SO, SO SOULFUL

The last one is trippier looking but I think is closer to what I saw at the NM in terms of level of music/text synchronization. Also here is a sort-of low-quality video that someone took at the exhibition.

I thought it was amazing, and I really liked it. I liked how the style is consistent throughout the works – with the jazz/bossa nova music; the dry, dark-ish tones that all of the texts take; and especially with YHCHI's choice to replace the 'O's with zeroes, it's all easily recognizable. In a sense YHCHI kind of brand themselves just by putting out their artwork, which is a pretty neat idea.

YHCHI at the New Museum.

Oh. And speaking of branding, Brand New very recently did a review of the New Museum's rebranding. Check it out here.