The online exhibition project "NORMAL VIDEOS" partially adopts the grammar of conceptual art that attempted to dematerialize art in the 1960s and 1970s. In particular, the characteristics of 1-person performance video recordings utilizing one's own body as an art object take center stage in this project. The landscape created by the pandemic prompts a shift from a collective world to a microcosmic world, emphasizing individualization with themes such as isolation, closure, disintegration, and non-contact. Floating through the spacetime of collective panic, we navigate between the past of disappeared "normal" daily life and the present of enforced "normal" routines. Art is questioning the materialization and collectivization of art forms once again from familiar exhibition spaces, assembly locations, and fragmented communities. The project, rooted in these inquiries, addresses the rapidly changing responses of artists derived from the swiftly transforming everyday life through video performance formats. While this endeavor is formally in line with the aforementioned past dematerialized conceptual art, it aims to demonstrate that, in terms of content, individual concepts are not externally expressed but are rather forced to conceptualize due to the altered external circumstances.
text: Jang Youngwon