On Welcoming KIM Insook’s The Real Wedding Ceremony
YAMADA So (Borderless Art Museum NO-MA)

“When I stop to think about it carefully, what kind of ritual is this, really?”

Whenever I attend a wedding, I often find myself asking that question. The first time I felt this way was at my cousin’s wedding.

The venue was modeled after a chapel (Chapel), with angels adorning the stained-glass windows. A Western minister appeared to guide the vows. As I recall, neither family was particularly Christian. Yet once it became a “wedding” ceremony, such religious backgrounds seemed simply to no longer count.

The reception was equally distinctive. A towering cake appeared, and the couple cut it together. Then came the ritual known as the “First Bite,” in which bride and groom feed each other cake. The bride’s aim missed slightly, leaving whipped cream around the groom’s mouth, and the audience erupted in delight. Friends took the stage and performed risqué comedy; the room grew heated, and then, toward the end, the bride read a letter aloud in a subdued tone. Throughout the reception, American hit songs such as those by the Backstreet Boys continued to play.

Since it is called a “ceremony,” and marriage marks such an important turning point, one might assume that strict adherence to tradition would be expected. Yet that does not seem entirely the case. New performances and inventions—utterly ungrounded in tradition—appear to emerge daily (apparently, not only giant cakes but even giant spoons now make appearances). Of course, traditional weddings still exist. But in general, weddings are remarkably flexible—so much so that, at the risk of misunderstanding, one might even say they lack a certain restraint. In this sense, I myself am among those who have held rather unusual weddings.

A wedding resembles a chimera composed of various cultures. And yet, few people seem unsettled by this hybridity, or inclined to criticize it. When I sit there thinking simply, “How celebratory,” the inconsistencies between cultures begin to feel insignificant. There seems to be a festive energy in weddings—an energy capable of integrating disparate cultural elements almost without anyone quite noticing.

The subject of KIM Insook’s The Real Wedding Ceremony, presented in the exhibition <79 Billion Others — To Every “I” Living on This Planet>, is the artist’s own wedding. Perhaps the essence of this work resonates with the very energy that weddings themselves contain.

The installation consists of an approximately 18-minute video and two photographs. Footage from weddings held in both Korea and Japan is presented alongside a male narration framed as having “infiltrated” the ceremonies. The two photographs shown with the video depict participants from each wedding.

The first half of the video centers on the Korean ceremony, conducted in a traditional style. The bride, groom, and guests wear traditional attire, and a figure known as the gireogi-abi carries a wooden goose, guiding the groom to the bride’s house. Such rituals may feel unfamiliar to Japanese viewers.

The video then shifts to the ceremony held in Japan. For those raised within Japanese culture, this format may appear more familiar than the Korean traditional wedding. Yet even here, somewhat peculiar rituals can be observed.

In fact, some of the rituals that appear were created by KIM Insook and do not actually exist. This is a crucial point in the work. Each time an unusual ritual appears, viewers begin to question the authenticity of what they are watching, eventually realizing that the piece also contains a fictional (fiction) dimension.

At that moment, one may feel compelled to watch the video a second time—this time to determine what is real and what is staged. One might even wonder whether the Korean wedding, unfamiliar to oneself, also contains elements that are fabricated. Or perhaps, after finishing the video, one might feel inclined to research the culture of the other country (I myself immediately looked up whether the gireogi-abi and the wooden goose truly exist).

Through the work, viewers naturally find their gaze turning toward cultures they do not know. And it seems that KIM Insook is proposing something beyond that as well.

One particularly striking scene is the ritual introduced midway through the video as the “Unification Train.” The groom rides on someone’s shoulders, while participants grasp the shoulders of the person in front of them, forming a train that weaves between tables and chairs at considerable speed. Within the work appear people whose backgrounds encompass Japan, Korea, and the Korean diaspora in Japan. They form a single train, moving in a circle.

The narration explains: “The Unification Train represents a dragon soaring through the sky and runs in the hope of prosperity for everyone present.” Yet given the fictional dimension already revealed, it is impossible to know whether this explanation is itself factual. Perhaps the ritual, too, was created by KIM Insook.

And yet, in the sight of people smiling, dancing, and running together as a train, we perceive an energy through which strangers come together to celebrate the couple and begin to merge as family. At this point, the historical question of what tradition such a ritual may be based upon no longer feels so important.

When two families intermingle, it means that people from different cultural spheres come together—an encounter that could easily give rise to conflict. But weddings contain imaginative leaps of a different kind—such as the invention of the giant cake. Standing before an enormous cake, would people truly quarrel?

Seen in this light, the curious performances that weddings have independently cultivated may appear as a kind of wisdom—one that prevents ideological confrontation. Even tradition itself is sometimes updated in unexpected ways. Weddings seem to carry a tension capable of absorbing multiple cultures almost inadvertently.

Might KIM Insook have woven invented rituals into her work by drawing upon this aspect of weddings? What unfolds on screen are scenes in which people converge within ceremonies that are neither clearly traditional nor clearly staged.

This work, which lightly yet decisively traverses difference, could only be realized by KIM Insook—an artist who has formed her identity in the space between Japan and Two Koreas, and has continued to express that position through her practice.

The Real Wedding Ceremony offers an important perspective to the concept of <79 Billion Others>, which asks how we might respect differences and build relationships.

After discussion with KIM Insook, it was decided that the work would be exhibited on the second floor of NO-MA. Within the tatami-lined Japanese-style space, the artist expressed her pleasure at presenting the work.

Meanwhile, the road passing in front of NO-MA is known as the “Chosenjin Kaidō” (Korean Envoys’ Route), named after the path once taken by the Joseon diplomatic missions. It is said that delegations of some 400 to 500 envoys from Korea would proceed in grand procession, drawing crowds of onlookers along the roadside. That NO-MA stands in such a place may be coincidental; yet the historical fact that a road connecting two nations runs before the museum is something I wish to value. As curator, I feel honored to welcome KIM Insook’s work in this location.

Looking at today’s world of social media and the internet, crude expressions of hate still circulate. Each time I encounter assertions that refuse to recognize the other and close off dialogue, I feel deeply discouraged—surely I am not alone in this. In our contemporary moment, KIM Insook’s expression offers us a way of sharing differences and living together. Even when confronted with violent rhetoric, it seems to grant us the courage to lift our heads again and again, and not to abandon dialogue.

Source:
  79 Billion Others — To Every “I” Living on This Planet
  Borderless Art Museum NO-MA, 2021
  Exhibition Catalogue, pp.34–35