Press Release:

NOTES ON THE MISSING OH

ÀDRIA JULIÀ

PROJECT ARTS CENTRE, DUBLIN

2 SEPTEMBER – 29 OCTOBER, 2011

OPENING THURSDAY 1^ST SEPT 6-8PM,

Remaking, renovating, retooling and re-imagining all describe the reconstitution of a piece of media into a new, sometimes very similar form. Adrià Julià’s revisiting of the Hollywood film Inchon is more a portrait of it: including ideas of translation and adaptation, Julia has attempted to make an artwork that inhabits the trajectory of the film and its story, bringing to the fore the context of its making, potentially as an instance of the film industry in general.

Haunted by propaganda, a desire for heroism and the financial, artistic and ethical compromises that bogged the production from start to finish, the legend of Inchon is one of failure. It was a monumental box-office flop, was criticised heavily on its reception in both South Korea and the US, and is today remembered as one of the worst movies ever made.

Inspired by the perceived heroism of General Douglas MacArthur’s beach landing at Incheon during the Korean War, the film was funded and produced by Reverend Sung Myung Moon, the controversial founder of the Unification Church of Korea. Suspected of harbouring propagandistic messages, stories soon began to emerge of linguistic and cultural misunderstanding on set, fuelled by the idiotic decision to film (as a matter of convenience) the people’s uprising in Gwangju that resulted in the Gwangju Massacre of 1980. Inchon was doomed to failure before it was even released.

As Adrià Julià began to piece together the story and context of the now abandoned film, he visited Inchon filming locations throughout Korea, compiled media reviews, news articles, and conducted interviews with some of the film’s original cast and crew. Film and television actor Namgung Won is an immediately identifiable star in the Korean context, but is presented in Notes on the Missing Oh in an out-take from his interview – silently seated and waiting to be filmed, in front of his own portrait.

On an opposite screen, the current status of the film is expanded on by interviewing Dick Mallais, the Los Angeles film industry expert on whose desk landed the orphaned film Inchon. One silent, the other an interview, together the two films reveal aspects of the story and context, helping to weave a complex tapestry of images and recollections.

But most clearly articulated are the physical and cultural landscapes of Korea, composed more through the grammar of still photography than film. Relegated as a backdrop for the war-time romance, Adrià Julià’s beautifully filmed sequences shift the landscapes into focus. He captures sites from Inchon that are now destitute, developed beyond recognition or hardly changed at all, creating a startling enveloping of time since the 30 year old screenplay was written.

Notes on the Missing Oh continues to be developed, and at Project Arts Centre Adrià Julià will include a new film produced for the exhibition in Dublin. Julià has been working with a composer to turn the script, hand-copied from an original 1978 version lodged in a Los Angeles library, into a visual and then musical score, which Julià has invited a band to interpret and finally perform.

Tessa Giblin

Curator of Visual Arts at Project Arts Centre

Project Arts Centre                                                                             www.projectartscentre.ie

39 East Essex Street                                                                            +353 (0)1 881 9613

Temple Bar, Dublin 2                                                                          gallery@projectartscentre.ie

Ireland                                                                                                   www.facebook.com/PACVisualArts

Gallery opening hours are Mon – Sat, 11am – 8pm, and entrance is free of charge.

If you would like to request press images or more information please contact:

Róisín McGann| Publicist & Communications Officer |Project Arts Centre| roisin@projectartscentre.ie |+3531 8819608

Extra Information:

Adrià Julià was born in Barcelona, Spain, and lives and works in Los Angeles. He has held solo exhibitions at the Museo Tamayo (Mexico City), Insa Art Space (Seoul), Orange County Museum of Art (Newport Beach, California), LAXART (Los Angeles), Artists Space (NY), Centro Cultural Montehermoso (Vitoria, Spain), Room Gallery (Univeristy of California Irvine), Sala Rekalde (Bilbao), Galería Soledad Lorenzo (Madrid), Sketch (London) and La Virreina (Barcelona). He has also participated in group shows at Generali Foundation in Vienna, Seoul Media City, Akademie der Künste Berlin, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, and at the 2007 Lyon Biennale and the 7th Mercosur Biennale. He has presented performances at the 29th Sao Paulo Bienal and at Galeria Soledad Lorenzo (Madrid) and participated at Serpentine Cinema: Cinact. Julià has been a grantee of Art Matters, American Center Foundation and California Community Foundation.

Select Solo Exhibitions
2011
Utopia, Ohio. BCN Producció – La Capella, Barcelona, Spain
2010
Indications for Another Place. Museo Tamayo, Mexico DF, Mexico
Ruinas del Habla. Galeria Soledad Lorenzo, Madrid, Spain
We Used to Talk about Objects as Found. Sketch, London, United Kingdom
2009
No Place Like Home. Insa Art Space, Seoul, Korea
2008
Indicios Para Otro Lugar. Centro de Arte Montehermoso, Vitoria, Spain
2007
A Means of Passing the Time. LA><ART, Los Angeles, USA
Adrià Julià. Galeria Soledad Lorenzo. Madrid, Spain
Home Movies.  Associates, London, United Kingdom
2006
Truc Trang Walls.  The Room Gallery, University of California, Irvine, USA
Adrià Julià.  Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, USA
2005
La Villa Basque, Vernon, California.  Artists Space, New York, USA
Select Group Exhibitions
2011
Shifting Surfaces : Experience, Perspectives and Media. Artsonje Museum, Gyeong Ju, Korea
2010
Trust – Seoul Media City. Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea
Before Everything. CA2M, Mostoles, Spain
L.A. Invisible City. Instituto Cervantes, Madrid, Spain
Serpentine Cinema: CINACT. Adrià Julià and Samuel Stevens. The Gate, London, United Kingdom
Arrivals and Departures. Mole Vanvitelliana, Ancona, Italy
A New Stance For Tomorrow: Part 3. Sketch, London, United Kingdom
Medianation. FotoFest 2010, Houston, USA
2009
7a Bienal do Mercosul. Porto Alegre, Brazil
Jakarta Biennale XIII. Jakarta, Indonesia
Mediterranean. Palazzo Rospigliosi, Rome, Italy
The Little Shop on Hoxton Street. Limoncello, London, United Kingdom
La historia no es más que cosas pequeñas en cierto desorden. Instituto Cervantes, Stockholm, Sweden
2008
Art Unlimited. Art Basel, Basel, Switzerland
Associates in New York. Phillips de Pury, New York, USA
Bienal Martínez Guerricabeitia. Valencia, Spain
2007
9 Biennale de Lyon. Lyon, France
Exile of the Imaginary. Politics / Aesthetics / Love. Generali Foundation, Vienna, Austria
2006
Nothing Stands Still.  New Langton Arts, San Francisco, USA
Mirador 06. O.K. Centrum für Gegenwartkunst, Linz, Austria   

Select Fellowships and Awards
2010
California Community Foundation Fellowship, USA
2008
Capacete Residency Program, Brazil
2007
Art Matters, USA
American Center Foundation, USA
Centro de Arte Montehermoso, Spain

With thanks to the Instituto Cervantes, Dublin and the Spanish Embassy in Ireland for their generous support of the exhibition and production of the new work.

Project Arts Centre is supported by the Arts Council and Dublin City Council