Stop Making Sense

Case Study House #21 and site of One and J Gallery for one week

In a Talking Heads song, David Byrne sings “as we get older and stop making sense…” Younger, older, there are times in life when trying to make sense just makes no sense at all. These are the times when we do the unexpected, when we take risks and stop worrying about the outcome.

I was reminded of this when talking to Won Jae Park, one of the owners of One and J Gallery from Seoul, Korea. Last week he and his business partner, Pat Lee, came to Los Angeles to set up a pop-up gallery at Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House #21 (pictured above. Photo By Julius Shulman).

A reflection of MJ Kim photographing the work of Teppei Kaneuji

No small venture this. It entailed shipping art from Korea, traveling and staying in Los Angeles for several weeks with family, friends and staff, orchestrating a celebrity photographer to document the installation and a reporter from Chosunilbo Daily, Korea’s largest newspaper, not to mention throwing a jam-packed VIP opening party coordinated by Carl Bendix from JupiterPx. Of it all Park said, “If I were someone who sat behind a desk for a living, looking at numbers, this wouldn’t make any financial sense at all. But we did it for the chance to connect and start a conversation with the people and the art scene of Los Angeles.”

 Jina Park, Moontan, 2007

It also didn’t make much sense to start a gallery five years ago heading into a recession and yet it, and the Los Angeles venture, proved to actually make sense. Because the goal was simply to start a conversation and build a community around the art and artists that Park and Lee admire. This might not have been the way to do business 10, 20 years ago, but it is exactly the right way today.

“The artists are more important to us than just their work,” Park says. “We represent people who we like, who have a genuine voice. We want to create a sustainable partnership with artists. It’s not an easy life.  It takes passion.”

Park, a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, gets that. But he also understands how to build and promote a business. Last year, after only five years in business, One and J Gallery was admitted into the New York Armory show, the international art happening that has helped launch the careers of many in the modern art world since 1913.

Won Jae Park and Tara Guber at VIP openin, photo by MJ Kim

True to their philosophy, Park and Lee chose to set up their booth as another  pop-up One and J gallery, a community. “We concentrated on showing our artists, not on selling,” Park says. “We came to get noticed and show people that we are serious. We attracted attention and met a lot of great people.”

The idea that it’s more important to build personal relationships in business is at the heart of the Asian mindset. It’s something the western world is taking more to heart, certainly lately. Doing business with a business card or a bottom line isn’t just joyless. It also isn’t successful in the long run. Throw art into the equation and it all just sort of starts making sense.