Nobody likes being uncomfortable. It is one of our basic instincts as humans to avoid being uncomfortable at all costs. Because of this, many artists are using that discomfort to get across their message by making us face what exactly it is that makes us uncomfortable. One artist who utilizes this beautifully is kate-hers RHEE. RHEE’s pieces force the viewer to witness the reality of many things that we find more comfortable to ignore.
Much of RHEE’s work involves audience participation, something that makes most people’s skin crawl. For many people, they attend an art show with a sort of voyeuristic intent. They are there to observe, but not contribute. An audience that functions in this way would not be truly anything from RHEE’s work. Much of her work is asking the audience to confront their own feelings and beliefs. Being simple observers does not allow for this. By making the audience participate in these acts, RHEE forces them to confront their own racism, such as in N-Kissing Booth. That usually makes people pretty uncomfortable. Even the most “woke” person attending an experimental performance art piece is not immune from the subtle ways racism and sexism can seep into oneself.
By making people uncomfortable, RHEE gives her audience no other option but to examine those feelings. One has to ask themselves, why exactly am I uncomfortable? Why does this bother me? Is it because this is something that I have been contributing to my whole life? Or perhaps its because this is something that I was completely unaware of prior to watching this woman be force-fed saltines? Discomfort forces people to examine their privilege, their actions, their psyches, etc. -things that are most comfortable to ignore. In this discomfort, people can find unity. People feel uncomfortable, and automatically think “we have to do something about this”, so they can stop feeling uncomfortable. This serves as a call to action. Whether it be about food culture, or the shady morality of Korean adoption, the discomfort RHEE makes them feel about the subject makes them want to do something – anything – to stop feeling this discomfort. That is how change can actually happen, and why discomfort is truly powerful.
The Politics of K-Pop 
Even though this may be unrelated to Korea art per se, your blog post really reminded me of a western contemporary artist called David Cerny. He is a political satirist from the Czech Republic. What makes him more influential than other artists is his transparency and the “uncomfortable” feeling he makes people feel. As he constantly targets directly to political corruption issues especially against the Czech government, his artworks make it hard for the audiences to ignore. The audiences’ response to the “in-the-face” visuals in a rather defensive way as he got a lot of criticism. This made me feel a sense of connection to the explicit approaches Rhee took in her artworks. What makes the two artists similar is that, like you said, their artwork makes it impossible for their audience to ignore the topic being portrayed so it leaves them no choice but to reflect on their emotions and feelings in response to the artwork. For example, in her project “Transkoreaning”, even though it may not be considered disturbing content, the process and development of her ability to express her differences in Korean make it impossible to ignore. Similarly, her detailed study with the concept of women breast demonstrated in her video work
“I Love The Way I Look! : Schicke Möpse T-Shirt Testimonials” also explicitly suggest ideas that are commonly being conserved in Korea but are openly discussed and talked about by Rhee herself. This explicit way of expressing ideas and awareness of rather sensitive topics will indeed cause controversy but it also can be considered as a very effective way for the audience to open up to their feelings and reflect on themselves against the issue.
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Your post reminds me of conceptual and performance artist, Adrian Piper, who kate-hers RHEE also mentioned in her lecture today. Adrian Piper’s repertoire is based on experiencing her own body, her body in relation to others, and making others uncomfortable. In her Catalysis Series, Piper would walk around in public- including retail stores and public transit- wearing smeared clothing, a wet paint sign, or with a rag in her mouth. In the Mythic Being Series, Piper dressed as an upper class black man and exhibited a stylized black masculinity as she walked through the streets of New York talking to herself. The work that involves Piper using her own body focused on circumstances in which her body goes against standards- whether those are public manners or gendered racial stereotypes. Like the art you mentioned kate-hers RHEE, Piper’s goal was to make the audience uncomfortable in their juxtaposition to her actions. The diasporic experiences are not relatable to those who are not part of it, but through these public confrontations, people become more subjected to discomfort in their own bodies and relationships to others. It’s interesting that Piper of a black diasporic family, and kate-hers RHEE as part of the Korean diaspora have found similar aesthetics of challenging western hegemony. Both artists now reside and work in Berlin, and the experiences of a Black American in Germany and a Korean American adoptee in Germany although not alike are most likely working on parallels. Considering the amount of non-white bodies residing in “white” spaces, transnational lives are extremely common and through art they can be brought into the monolithic mainstream.
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The idea of discomfort as art reminds of how discomfort has been used as a form of entertainment, where people are placed in uncomfortable situations and their reactions are served to an audience. As example that comes to mind is The Eric Andre Show, which features celebrity guests on a talk show-like environment which slowly falls apart both situationally and physically which places the guest in a very uncomfortable situation. Some examples include the destruction of set pieces, bursts of intense anger from the host, and sudden revelations of contrived traumas, often accompanied by unfitting music. The utilises second-hand discomfort, similar to the one experienced by viewers of Rhee’s work, to provide an experience for the audience. In addition to the talk show setting, sometimes the show involves the public, much like Rhee also does. Mainly in New York City, some scenarios that involve the public include Andre dressed as a police officer destroying a police car, or dressed as a USPS employee destroying mail. The spectacle of acting out in public and the shock response from most unknowing participants serves as the entertainment for the audience. Of course, with a high amount of disruption for the public settings, and the popularity of the show increasing (which removes the feasibility of the celebrity element), maintaining such a show with the same hosts proves to be difficult as the spectacle comes from the shock of surprise, which a famous host won’t be able to have.
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This is clearly prominent in her work especially those inviting audience participation such as the N-Kissing booth. It demands attention and participation. The audience is placed in a position of do or die. It’s a method to force reaction. Art is usually behind a glass casing, easy to consume and analyze. Once it is alive and walking, observers are unsure how to engage or even how to fully react, but they have to react.
The Chocolate Kiss series creates this sense particularly well. This particular display also incorporates bondage into it with a chocolate ball gag. The mix of food and sex many times peaks intrigue, but at the same time uncertainty. It calls the individuals own thoughts, morality and humanity into question. Is it racist if you kiss her? Is it racist if you don’t? What is right? To look upon the display of her tied up at the wrists and gagged at the mouth are you allowing her to remain a fortune cookie or are you mentally engaging in freeing her?
Overall, this style of interactive, uncomfortable art is a good one. It can be used to evoke emotions and sentiments that other art forms cannot. Art cannot be limited to a canvas or a screen. Art is performance. It makes you feel something, and kate hers-RHEE definitely has found a way to make people “feel something.”
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I think today’s presentation by Jiwon Choi’s also brought some level of discomfort. The juxtaposition of the K-pop idol audition videos with her grandfather’s Korean war experience as a soldier was uncomfortable for me. Not necessarily because the topics seemed, on the surface, to have nothing in common (even though she was able to eventually make a great point about their parallels). It was uncomfortable because I was challenged to shift my mood so drastically throughout the video. On the one hand, The idol videos were sometimes comedic then she explored the different assigned personalities, or sometimes they were just entertaining because they demonstrated a glimpse of the competitive idol scouting process. On the other hand her veteran grandfather remembered with details the dangers, fears, and near-death experiences he endured during his time in the military. And at one point in the middle of this, her video instructed us to wave our glow sticks in the air to a SHINee performance. To bring it back to kate-hers RHEE’s work and your point about uncomfortable interaction, Jiwon’s art allowed me to question why these parallels matter: idols are assigned identities that will make them succeed in the industry; soldiers get stripped of their individuality for the sake of uniform survival at war. What happens to the identity of the person that adopts and idol persona and then completes his military years? What is left of their own identity, if they even had time to form one at all? Those are some question I never would have asked myself if I were not exposed to Jiwon’s uncomfortable yet brilliant art work.
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I truly agree with how discomforting feelings can be a powerful emotion for people. I personally feel discomfort when I see things that are risque, or things deviating from the norms, or things extremely brutal and grotesque, which I do not get to witness that much in daily lives. I started questioning myself the reasons I feel this way, and I thought there could be numerous reasons behind this psychology. Perhaps because I feel so attached and subtly desire such things, or I could perhaps want those discomforting things to be completely detached from myself since some of those aspects actually exist in my mind and I do not want to confront and admit the truth. Thus, sometimes people think feeling discomfort is a very inefficient action since they tend to consider a discomfort is not at all, in the end, a productive emotion to feel. When people feel discomfort, this can convert into even more negative feelings like despair, misery, frustration, denial, and etc. However, I do not think the less discomfort can alleviate your hidden scars since there is an art of discomfort, the beauty of it: people get to realize their deeper egos or identities through the feeling of discomfort, and people can also get a chance to think about the controversial questions that they have never been able to ask for themselves and finally be able to broaden their aspects. It’s almost like pioneering into the unknown areas. Sometimes this can awaken oneself and even enlighten the others. I believe the feeling of discomfort is the flap of the wings that can bring a huge butterfly effect on human society.
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