Installation View
Georgie Nettell
Masterful Attention Seekers, 2024
Museum of Contemporary Art, Busan
Installation View
Juliana Huxtable
Masterful Attention Seekers, 2024
Museum of Contemporary Art, Busan
Masterful Attention Seekers explores the instinctual human craving for attention in a variety of contexts. By examining the multi-layered attention-seeking prevalent in contemporary art, the exhibition examines the history of attention-seeking and contemplates how attention and its seekers are rooted in our daily lives. Through a variety of artworks, we delve into the nature of desire based on attention and examine how such desires are expressed and understood through art.
Ultimately, the exhibition attempts to transcend categories of positive and negative attention seekers, suggesting that the act of seeking attention does not belong to fixed categories and is highly subjective, allowing for diverse interpretations. Rather than offering conclusions, the exhibition raises open questions for each of us. Divided into 23 main sections, it functions as both an open space and a maze, within which each viewer may find their own path forward and their own answers to the complex question of desire for attention. We encounter, through the exhibition, a highly select group of artists, each of whom exquisitely and elegantly redefines the norms of art. Through their diverse works, cultural backgrounds and values, the exhibition aims to speculate and provide preliminary analyses upon the concept of attention and those who seek it. These artists reveal their unique interpretations of attention seeking and their personal experiences of (being) attention seekers in their own expressive styles. Through the exhibition, we explore the personal desires and ambitions of artists, within the wider trends of contemporary art, and their sophisticated strategies for satisfying them, suggesting that becoming a masterful attention seeker is not simply about attracting the attention of others but is also based on deep self-reflection. This allows for our own profound meditation on how we each perceive one another and how we are connected far beyond the mere desire for attention.