Preview: 6-9pm, 24th January
25th January – 1st March 2014
The
Agency
is
pleased
to
present
works
on
paper
by
Korean
artist
Bada
Song
Bada
Song
has
been
recognised
for
her
strong
position
as
a
mark‐maker
who
is
influenced
by
her
performance
practice.
Her
approach
to
drawing
is broad
and
cross‐disciplinary,
involving
live
performance,
photography,
sound
pieces,
video
and
painting.The
‘
Leitmotif”
of
Song’s
practice
is
Ta‐iL,
a
continuing
series
of
representations
of
traditional
hanok
roof‐ tiles
as
a
symbolic
pattern.
The
word
Ta‐iL
is
a
phonological
play
on
the
English
word
’tile’.
It
does
not
exist in
Korean
but
is
made
up
by
the
artist
in
reference
to
the
common
appropriation
of
English
words
into
the Korean
language
using
familiar
Korean
sound
patterns
and
English
spelling.
Song’s
interest
in
the
roof
tile
as a
symbol
of
shelter
stems
from
a
specific
Korean
context:
During
the
Japanese
occupation
of
Korea
until 1945
traditional
house
building
was
discouraged,
and
in
the
subsequent
Korean
War
(1950‐53)
much
of
the housing
stock
was
demolished.
Post-war
there
were
little
funds
and
the
devastated
traditional
hanok housing
in
urban
and
rural
areas
was
rapidly
replaced
by
hundreds
of
plain
low-cost
apartment
blocks,
built fast
as
company
housing
on
the
periphery
of
the
urban
centres
of
South
Korea.Despite
the
obvious
and
relevant
direct
references
to
hanok
architecture,
Ta‐iL
as
a
conceptual
principle
underpins most
aspects
of
Bada
Song’s
practice.
The
tile/
cover
also
signifies
shelter,
covering,
also
the
gesture
of
covering
one’s face
to
hide
emotions
or
covering
one
motif
with
another.
Her
recent
triptych
of
Yeonji (2013)
consists
of
three elements:
a
photograph
showing
the
artist
as
a
traditional
Korean
bride,
her
face
obliterated
by
a
red
circle,
a
diptych
of sound
pipes,
covered
in
red
nail
varnish
and
lipstick
marks
emanating
the
sound
of
Bong
Sun
Flower,
a
Korean resistance
song
with
a
significant
literary
reference
in
Theresa
Hak
Kyung
Cha’s
1982
post-structuralist
novel
Dictee and
thirdly
a
life
performance
of
the
song
with
the
artist
covered
by
a
giant
cloth
hand
-sewn
from
red
circular
pieces.
All three
elements
reveal
different
rigorous
approaches
to
layering
and
covering
as
a
wider
application
of
mark-making. This
is
congruent
with
the
dense
graphite
mark
formations
of
her
much
more
minimal
Ta‐iL
drawings. Bada
Song’s
work
is
a
confident
and
intriguing
way
of
negotiating
drawing
from
a
premise,
which
does
not
limit
it
to
a
genre.
Instead
her
gestural
and semiotic
approach
opens
drawing
up
as
a
cross‐medial
art
form.Bada
Song
was
born
in
Jeju
Island,
and
grew
up
in
Seoul,
Korea.
She
moved
to
London
over
a
decade
ago
and
was
awarded
the
Jerwood
Prize (
2nd)
for
Drawing
in
2012.
from: The Agency, 66 Evelyn Street, London SE8 5DD