Payday

Solo show at N/A Gallery, Seoul 
19 Feb - 13 March, 2022 
Opening 19 Feb, Saturday, 4pm

Whenever I drink too much and suffer the next day, I search for hangover cures. I have not found anything worthwhile. In some countries, people eat pizza. Others drink a cup of espresso. When I had drunk until the next morning and had to get on a plane within a few hours, I had a feeling that I will be rejected by the airline in the state I was in. So, I visited a pharmacy at the airport before I checked in.

“I have a hangover. It's making me feel nauseous.”
The pharmacist smiled and asked, “Miss, how much have you drunk? What is your condition?”.
“I’m seriously suffering.”
“There are three options: 5,000 won, 10,000 won and 30,000 won.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The one that costs 30,000 won will allow you to drink again this evening.”
“Can I have the one that costs 10,000 won?”

The pharmacist said, “You will feel better after two hours.” as if handing over an elixir. In the bag, I saw a stomach relief medicine and an extract of Milk thistle. The 10,000 won-hangover helper turned out to be the pharmacist's concoction. The hangover helper that costs 30,000 won remains a mystery. It can only be given by the pharmacist at Incheon airport.

Starting with the search for a hangover cure, I ended up reading about a hair of the dog. Curing one's hangover with another drink seems like a drinker's excuse, but one drunk scientist proved the effect scientifically as if to prove his innocence. A complex chemical formula ends up with a story that tells us to get over the hangover with another drink.

The full name of the drink that is used to get over a hangover in English is “a hair of the dog that bit you”. It literally is “a dog's hair” and “the hair of the dog that bit you”. It comes from a British folk remedy which tells you to rub the wound that a rabid dog has bitten you with the dog's hair. In Korean, it would translate into “이열치열” which is an idiom for such an occasion. It means what seems like a problem can be a solution. When applying hair of the dog into this, the causal relationship between the problem and solution does not add up. It just ends up being a funny joke. Is a hair of the dog a remedy or poison? If I get over my hangover with the help of a hair of the dog, is that a blessing of the remedy or the poison?

This paradox of blessing happens as below:

Excessive drinking → Drunk → Hangover → A hair of the dog → Excessive drinking → Drunk → Hangover →   A hair of the dog → Excessive drinking → Drunk → Hangover → A hair of the dog …

- From the artist's note

Drinks on the shelf await to be selected by the audience, the blocked entry, a selfie with various looks, exaggeratedly colored debit cards in a color darkroom and a tequila glass which has lost its function as a glass and is held together by tension.

Gallery N/A is presenting Jiyoon Chung’s first solo show Payday from February 19th to March 13th. It was selected as the Open Call prize winner. In this exhibition, she directly brings out the experience of paradox which has positioned itself as a concept.

The definition as a common noun of payday is the day when wages are paid. It also means a large sum of rap money or when it is paid within the hip-hop scene. Unlike the payday of hip-hop, especially the swag “We earn your annual salary in a month (너의 연봉을 한 달에 버는)” (from Don, feat.The Quiett, Dok2, Nochang), which had successfully settled into Korean pop culture, the artist seeks to explore the other side of the sense of disparity by making a joke to the plausible world with the word payday positioned itself in our daily lives as something “sad but hilarious”.

On the shelf installed on the second floor door, there are tequila glasses with liquor which is edible. They are waiting to be selected by the audience, yet they block the entry so the audience cannot pass. The audience can either accept or decline the artist's hospitality. However, to see the exhibition on the 3rd floor, one must step onto the stage under the large window. A sequence of music made of various producer's type beats (which are instrumentals for which producers have mimicked famous rappers to promote oneself) is played on the stage, and the audience passes the stage to enter the backstage. The mirror selfie - which is cleverly dancing between “I” as how I see and “I” as how others see - volunteers to be the subject through the camera lens. A type beat, which is made to deliberately remind us of a specific user, is named after the rapper – not the producer (e. g., “Kendrick Lamar type beats”). Just like the mirror selfie, this is to reveal existence by removing oneself from the point where multilayered looks are exchanged.

1542, 5920, 2494 and 8745 on the third floor are a series of photos using a photogram and enlargement technique. This is a collection of debit cards that the artist found after the issuance of new debit cards. Several cards issued under one person are colored exaggeratedly and exude the air of mystery in a color darkroom. In the area between the photogram works and the wall, there is an upside-down tequila glass with liquor. The work Hair of the dog whose motif is from the paradox “hair of the dog” recalls the tequila shelf from the first floor along with the cycle of being fully drunk, drinking hair of the dog and to being fully drunk again. It repeats the rather funny cycle where the beginning and the end are obscure. The tequila glass which had lost its original function as a glass is maintained by tension. It remains in its position, oblivious of the future that it will spill. The lost cards always mysteriously appear when the situation is over.

Glasses in the entry are leaning over to appeal for people to drink. The glossy-looking Stage is stained with epoxy and attracts the audience. When the audience finally decides to enjoy the abundance, one sees mysterious debit cards which repeatedly appear and disappear. One also faces collected glasses hiding their risky natures. Just like a beautiful and mystical mirage that only appears for a short amount of time and disappears, the music stops, and undrinkable glasses are aligned. If desired, one can repeatedly access the entry and step onto the stage to listen to the music and drink.

Jiyoon Chung has explored the object which becomes obscure in the concept of time. The place where children have disappeared becomes normal through the skin of daily lives Every Evening, 2016; under the promise of borrowing and returning, Haruki Murakami's novels disappear in Frankfurt libraries Borrwoed Tower – A method of rememberance for Rat, 2019; and the illusion of first snow that comes every year becomes vague by the individual standards of the subject that perceives The First Snow, 2019. Like other previous works, Payday tries to see through what is inside. The artist still does not define for sure, but she offers a multi-ending system where the audience can make decisions and change the flow and speed of the exhibition. Like the mirage where the illusion and the fascination come together, Payday seems to make a joke that is not so laughable.

Music: CIFIKA
Installation director and design: Han-bin Son

sponsored by Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture

N/A Gallery
27, Changgyeonggung-ro 5-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul 04545
+82 (0)10 2524 1061
gallery@nslasha.kr
@nslasha.kr