The White 2021: When ‘Post Digital era’ meets ‘Cluttercore’

(白 2021：当“后数字时代”遇到“极繁主义”)

LEE Janguk

The previous exhibition "The WHITE: The 21st Century Future Intermediate Art Space Through Changes in Exhibition Space (白：通过展示空间的变化呈现二十一世纪未来型媒介空间)” delt changes in exhibition space that were meaningful to art history and what kind of events were responsible for these changes. The early exhibition space started from serving as a way to express the desire of showing and collecting that lead to a closed form of a white cube. However, through repeated progress and revolution, it transformed into an experience-oriented exhibition that communicated with the audience and encourages participation. The exhibition space, which has undergone constant changes through time, has now permeated our daily lives and now we are living in an era where experience becomes art. 

So, what kind of changes are the exhibition spaces showing in our daily life in this current pandemic situation?

Post-Corona, the era of Untact The word post-Corona is a compound word of Post (after) and Corona (COVID-19), which refers to an era and situation to come after overcoming Corona. Corona occurred in December 2019 and spread out through the world, leading to the World Health Organization's pandemic declaration. As the number of infected people surged, countries around the world implemented social distancing such as travel restrictions, remote classes and telecommuting worldwide to prevent the spread. This was an innovative (?) change, something quite different from the time before Corona. As changes due to corona are becoming common, it is predicted that the history of mankind will be divided into before Corona (BC) and After Corona (AC). While all areas of humanity, including politics, economy, society, and culture, have faced change due to corona, the biggest change above all is the spread of untact culture as physical contact has been minimized. Furthermore, as mentioned in the earlier exhibition, in this era where everyday life and experience becomes art, pandemic made a difference in our lives. I also, was no exception. Reflecting this situation, the hottest word of the year would be "Cluttercore."  

#cluttercore I was quite surprised as soon as I hash tagged cluttercore on social media where I realized that a great deal of people actually live among the chaos of countless objects, regardless of language and culture. Cluttercore is an aesthetic that has been opposed to minimalism, which has been popular in the interior world for many years. In the meantime, the maximalist was considered to be a poor person to be told to "clean up and live." But recently, minimalism has become a personality. Of course, there is a rule in messiness. ‘Maximalism’ does not mean that there is no need to clean up the clutters. It means to decorate the space with their own items creatively after storing and organizing unnecessary items. The new coronavirus disease has changed the way we relate to the world, igniting not only our notion of decorating indoors in a splendid manner, or outdoor space and society, but also our love for indoor clothes. Also, it has changed the way we relate to home. The area which we only encounter at the beginning of the morning and at the end of the day, ‘home’, is now busy with many functions added. It will not only be suited as a resting place, but also as an office and a battleground, and nonetheless a daycare center.

Exuberant mismatching In May this year, the BBC published an article about cluttercore. There, Jennifer Howard said, "It reminded me that Corona should be a place to wrap your home with things you love rather than things you have to endure." Surely cluttercore may be a fad in the Pandemic era. The more time you spend at home, the more you get to realize. Copying a minimal interior design in the magazine would be something you would want, but that's not possible. Somehow you have to live hugging things.

The Centre de Cultura Contournia de Barcelona (CCCB), a contemporary cultural center in Barcelona, also noted the trend early on. The cultural center held a collaboration of the artworks of Juanjo Fuentes and a British photographer Martin Parr to explain creative curation activities. The exhibition was curated by Juan Pablo Wert where he explains that "the two collections are made of eye-catching collections and mass results." It was 2012 at the time, and nine years later, eclecticism is now seen in more diverse forms. "The Apartment", founded by a Swedish designer Tina Seidenfaden Busck is a good example. It is a design gallery housed in an 18th-century building in Copenhagen, exhibiting a clutter-like visual delight.

At some point, Minimalism, Minimal life has become some sort of a biblical verse. In the era of modernism, the existence of world-wide standard values was taken as granted, and those of which lack to meet these international standards were regarded peripheral. These standards were also applied to art, and accordingly, the evaluation standards of aesthetic in art were reverted to color and form. These aesthetic standards, referred to as "international style," developed into abstract expressionism and enformel art, eventually creating minimalism. 

Minimalism gave great impact across all areas. People began to hate people who bought a lot of things. What they say is not entirely wrong. We live in a time where we buy things and throw things away more than ever. There is a clear reason for the clamor of eating less, spending less and buying less to save the Earth. But personally, I'm the one who can't. I like to buy things and collect things. I am a person who finds peace surrounded by things. And in today's pandemic situation, 'cluttercore' turns ordinary people into curators. Thinking about what goes where and how this item tells that to other items requires true creativity. In this exhibition, I intended to decorate this place with the artworks that creatively impresses oneself, similar to my desire of filling up this space with my chosen works and to be protected from the outside, being cared for and comforted as if we were cocoons...….

When post-digital era meets cluttercore: The 21st century, the post-digital era where online and offline are indistinguishable, expands beyond the realm of reality to virtual areas. The futuristic intermediate space, that is, the exhibition space, has evolved from the cabinets of the past to the Enlightenment Museum of the modern era, to the Aestheticism Museum and the Commercial Museum of late 20th century, and to the shared space of the 21st century. Similar to the struggle of the global economy to supplement the limitations of neoliberalism with capitalism 4.0 that emphasized the publicness of mutual reciprocity, the art of this era is trying to escape the art of private value capitalized by someone.

Now, as a fundamental basis, an essential element in our lives, art should be expanded to be recognized as a value of public goods that anyone can share. The future medium is no longer confined to physical exhibition spaces. It is a platform where creative, competent artists and experts in various fields, meet the visitors, and become a medium for providing opportunities to enjoy art in life. In cluttercore situations where ordinary people can curate with creative actions, directly sharing and taking part is nonetheless a way to enrich a person’s life compared to appreciating great masterpieces. Thus, the future medium space should turn its focus from ‘artwork’ to ‘human’, where it can serve as a medium for all by combining the keywords; diversity, global mobility, and convergence that represent the 21^st century, rather than being a momentary trend in pandemic situations.

As William Gibson said, “The future is already here. It's just unevenly distributed.”.