Face/Off, Shaotong He

A cooperative work with Korean artist Bangjoo kim. It was shown for the first time in the exhibition Yellow Reflection at Galerie Liusa Wang in Paris.

Work process:

1. The Chinese Artist Shaotong He and the Korean Artist Bangjoo Kim (both live and work in Stuttgart, Germany) exchange their identities including their names and nationalities. That means, He has to imagine himself as a Korean artist to live his life in this period, so does Kim in reversed way.

2. „Kim“ reflects on his surrounding in daily life with his imaginary Korean perspective and share his thoughts with „He“.

3. „He“ uses their conversation as inspiration source for taking photos in his surrounding based on his own interpretation.

4. „He“ gives all photos to „Kim“ without any hint. „Kim“ has to select the photos which inspire him and gives them title by his interpretation.

5. They produce an album with yellow cover features „Kim’s“ selection of „He’s“ photos with handwritten titles. 10 of the total 61 photos are linked to 10 online videos, which show their thoughts exchange and the interpretation processes for the production of the photos. To watch the videos, visitors are able to scan the photos with the AR app Artivive, which is available on any mobile device.

*the title of this work was inspired by the action film Face/Off from John Woo features John

Travolta and Nicolas Cage in 1997.

video shot&edited by Minsun Lee

Parallel to the exhibtion "Yellow Reflection", a protest for the fair treatment to the chinese/against racism in france was organised and operated by Galerie Liusa Wang and the artists who participate the exhibition. The special documentary video shot&edited by Minsun Lee focused on Bangjoo Kim and Shaotong He in this action. No one had noticed that there was a korean artist, people only knew that they don't speak french.