Bona park

Bona Park

Bona Park engages in works that critically examine the social system by overlapping the ways images are created in art, the stories and labor of those who create them, and the functioning of the economy and history outside of art. The artist creates awkward and uncomfortable situations that often blur the boundaries between art and everyday life through various mediums such as performance, video, and installation. Bona Park graduated with a degree in English Language and Literature and Journalism and Broadcasting from Sogang University in 2000, and completed a degree in Sculptural Arts at Korea National University of Arts in 2004. She earned an MFA in Art Practice from Goldsmiths College in London in 2008. She currently resides and works in Seoul.

Major Works

La boîte – en – sac plastique (The Box in a Plastic Bag)

The work "La boîte – en – sac plastique" is a performance parodying the title of Marcel Duchamp's "La boîte-en-valise (The Box in a Suitcase)". It investigates the dinner habits and related memories and symbols of the participants, who are then asked to carry a shopping bag during the opening event. This performance, presented successively at exhibitions such as "Out of Line" (Space Hamilton, Seoul, 2010), "The Ungovernables" (New Museum Triennial, New York, USA, 2012), and "Museum for All, Museum for Dogs" (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, 2020), started with the participating artists and curators and later expanded to include all those involved in creating the exhibition, such as artists, carpenters, designers, ticket sellers, security guards, coordinators, and exhibition workers. The grocery bags filled with evening market purchases raise questions about what constitutes art, who are the people carrying the bags, what labor structures exist within the art institution, and the personal stories behind each bag.

Kotakina Blue

"Kotakina Blue" (Sindoh Company's Cultural Space, Seoul, 2015) suggests through incorrect signs the situation where images inadequately reproduce reality and proliferate endlessly. "Kotakina Blue 1" (2015) is a 10-channel video work featuring Changho LEE, a foley artist, using various objects to create sounds of nature that one might hear in a resort. The sounds of paths, rivers, beaches, waves, water, wind, rain, and footsteps contrast with the labor of the foley artist in the video and the office work at Sindoh's headquarters, prompting reflection on the image, art, and the institutions and labor behind it.

Paradise City

"Paradise City" is a work produced for the Anyang Public Art Project APAP in 2016, featuring a four-channel video of four citizens of Anyang playing "Paradise City" by Guns N' Roses against the backdrop of representative public places in Anyang. Bona Park's work continuously questions the boundaries between art, life, labor, and place, vibrating in between.

Awards and Selections

Bona Park has participated in residency programs including Artist Residency (Cittadellarte- Fondazione Pistoletto, UNESCO-Aschberg Grant, Biella, Italy, 2009), Nanji Art Studio (Seoul, 2016), and as the Michelangelo Pistoletto Band in collaboration with Eunji Jo, was supported by the Art Space Geumcheon(Seoul, 2012). She has been selected for New Face Artist 2006 (Art in Culture, Seoul, Korea, 2006), SINDOH Artist Sponsorship Program 3rd SINAP (Seoul, 2013), Performance as process (Delfina Foundation, London, UK, 2015), 15th SongEun Art Award (SongEun Art and Cultural Foundation, Seoul, 2015), and as a supported artist for Space Beam (Incheon, 2011) among others.

Exhibitions

Her major solo exhibitions include "Black Hole Has No Hair" (Gallery Chosun, Seoul, 2019), "Re-enactments" (Cartel Space, Bangkok, Thailand, 2019), "Kotakina Blue" (Sindoh Company's Cultural Space, Seoul, 2015), "Friends" (Gallery Chosun, Seoul, 2013), "X Reverse" (Pingpong Art Space, Taipei, Taiwan, 2011), and "X2" (The Room, Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, 2009). Her major group exhibitions include "Exhibition Deliveryman" (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Cheongju, 2022), "The Season of Meeting Myself" (Daegu Art Museum, Daegu, 2022), "Past, Present, Future" (SongEun Art Space, Seoul, 2022), and others. In collaboration with Eunji Jo, as the Michelangelo Pistoletto Band, they have carried out projects such as the "APAP Anyang Public Art Project" (Anyang, 2013), "Gold Friday Performance Relay" (Seoul Art Space Seogyo, Seoul, 2012), and others.

Publication

Following the art essay collections "When Attitude Becomes the Work" (2019) and "If You Call Even the Nameless" (2021), she published "The Moment Art Becomes Mine" (2023).