Because it is not only precious or decorative, the Parcours Bijoux festival invites you to discover other facets of this object of desire through 250 creators and designers. Meeting with artist Yoon Sunwoo during his performance Le Pari at the Palais Galliera in Paris, October 5.
250 creators, designers, visual artists and historians, French and foreign, discover the different facets of jewelry which is at the crossroads of contemporary art, fashion, crafts and design. Until October 29, around fifty events – exhibitions, performances, conferences in museums, galleries, institutions and public spaces – show that it is at the same time a social, anthropological and aesthetic object.
Parcours Bijoux was created by the association D’un bijoux à l’autre, which brings together contemporary jewelry professionals and representatives of French associations. Supported by Francécole and Paris City Hall, this festival takes place every three years in Paris.
Contemporary jewelry comes in as many forms and interpretations as there are creators, know-how, personal stories, intentions and journeys. It can be poetic, playful, joyful, disturbing, scary or beautiful! On October 5, at the Palais Galliera, Yoon Sunwoo invited the public – who had come at night to see one of the fashion museum’s exhibitions – to participate in his performance Le Pari. Just before the launch, exciting meeting with an artist who offers a different perspective on the art market.
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Franceinfo culture: what is your background?
Yoon Sunwoo: I have had a fairly multicultural life. I am on the border of several cultures, languages and countries: I was born in Korea, then my family immigrated to Canada before returning to Korea. I passed my Baccalaureate in a French high school then I finished my studies at the Haute école des arts du Rhin in France. Even as a child, I was interested in fashion and design but in Strasbourg there was no program dedicated to this theme so I opted for the arts, objects, jewelry section. This allowed me to broaden my perspectives.
Are you claiming “in-between” status?
Yes, I always feel in an “in-between”, whether cultural, identity but also in my work. I experiment and am in search of a status “between” sculpture/jewelry, art/design and participation/installation. I think that jewelry, especially in its innate function of being worn, is a tool to create this space and question. When the body becomes the living base, there is a crossing of perspectives not only on the side of the artist but also on the side of the person who wears it. In exhibitions of contemporary art jewelry, I am a little surprised to see them in display cases: that you can neither touch them nor wear them. Which I can understand of course: these are fragile unique pieces.
How do you approach contemporary jewelry?
It is an object that must be worn, it is its innate function. It must be activated not only by the artist but also by other bodies. The jewel is a tool of perspective, that is to say the crossing between the gaze of the wearer and that of the artist. The gap between these two views exists when these pieces are activated on the body, the living base as the first place of experimentation. There is also a notion of personal attachment when wearing a work of art. I wonder about the proximity between the work and the public, about a new way of disseminating the work of art.
For your first participation in Parcours Bijoux, you have opted for a participatory performance at the Palais Galliera?
For my first participation in this Festival, once my project was selected, I had to find a location. As the organizers knew that I needed a site with a changing room, they asked the Palais Galliera to accommodate me.
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In most of my projects, the body is the basis of my work so I rather use the term “wearable art”rt to wear). As my pieces are worn, the temporality of the work changes as each work begins and ends differently depending on its wearer. It was therefore natural for me to move towards performance rather than installation.
In this performance, entitled Le Pari, you offer the visitor the opportunity to exchange their item of clothing left in the cloakroom for a numbered ring
This performance is inspired by numbered tokens for locker rooms. Here at the fashion museum, they take the form of a unique and numbered ring that the visitor receives when leaving their wardrobe for the evening visit to the exhibition. Azzedine Alaia, fashion designer collector.
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At the beginning, I was ambitious, I wanted to make 300 pieces, but budget-wise, it was complicated. There are only 100 pieces numbered from 0 to 99, each with a different shape. The latter is created by rotating the profile of each digit 360 degrees. I chose the number because the token originally has a number. Each piece of jewelry is made of hand-turned wax and then lost-wax casting in bronze.
100 people can borrow these rings for the duration of their visit, then decide whether or not to keep them in exchange for their deposit. It’s up to them to weigh the pros and cons of the value between my jewelry and their wardrobe. As the Palais Galliera is a fashion museum, visitors who come to see the exhibition feel a special attachment to their clothing.
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Is this performance a game of unforeseen circumstances?
I didn’t want to advertise this performance too much to avoid the visitor bringing back an object that had no value for them. If he does not know this in advance, he may then question the value of what he leaves in the locker room.
It’s focused on the experience of wearing the object. For me, it has a value, authentic, specific to the wearer. It’s a bet, a game of exchange and trust. As an artist, I do not lose: if the visitor makes an exchange, it is a counter-donation but if he does not exchange, that concerns me. Why did he not exchange: because I am a young little-known artist, because the shape of the object does not please him, because the object is enormous and not very portable, because it is not in precious metal?
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NB: interviewed a few days after the artistic performance, Yoon Sunwoo told us that 87 rings were distributed during this evening and 11 were returned to the cloakroom, so 76 people dared to exchange their clothing for a ring!
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This notion of barter raises the question of the value of your artistic objects?
In this project, as it is a non-monetary exchange, there is already the value of the experience of each participant which is authentic and personal. When dropping off the locker room, everyone receives a certificate of authenticity of the experience. This ticket, which bears the locker room number, where the visitor places his name and signature, also bears the start and end time of the experience. A photo of the hand wearing the jewelry is then taken. In addition to this first value of authentic experience, there is also the action of donating clothing, which is of great importance to me.
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Will these exchanged clothes fuel a continuation of this project?
Since there is an exchange, it is my responsibility to do a future artistic project, for example doing a post-exhibition with these exchanged objects. I would like to use them as raw material for one of my future projects but as I don’t know what these objects will be, I can’t yet consider what happens next.
I hope to continue this project which raises a lot of questions and continue in the future with, for example, a changing room for a swimming pool or a nightclub. Depending on the context, this changes the choices.