In Which A Korean Performance Artist Sets Out to Sell Snow on the Beach

Korean artist Yva Jung had been slanging snow straight from New York City for almost an hour when the police came by. Without a permit, they said, selling on the beach was illegal. Yva, original from Seoul, but has been working and schooling first in Montreal, and currently in New York City, had no idea what was really being said. Her boyfriend, an up and coming Catalan photographer called Joel was doing all the talking. They seemed determined to make her leave. Then they thought about it. Snow. In an envelope on the beach in Barcelona. On a sunny day. She wasn't going to sell a damn thing. They let her stay where she was.

Amidst a range of reactions, responses, and feelings (yes, people had feelings about it all!), I tried to translate. But the truth was that I had no idea how Yva managed to put snow in an envelope.  I witnessed...


Mistrust:
"But how is that snow from New York?"
"How do I know it's really from New York?"
"Is it authentic?"


Skepticism:
"How is snow in an envelope? Doesn't it melt?"
"So, you have some technology in the envelope to preserve the snow..."


Anger and annoyance: 
"Well, what's the purpose of this? Why are you selling it?"
"What would I do wih snow?"


Amusement:
"Is this a hidden camera prank? Am I going to be on Zapping (like, a Catalan Punked) next week?"

Respect:
"Que guay!"
"How cool!"


Yva didn't even tell me what was in the envelopes until 3 hours after I'd been standing there. Suffice it to say, you just might buy it if you knew what was in it. She's a visual artist; then the sale of that art becomes a tableau that potential buyers enter. It's about the exchange. The show. The story, in the end, the story to tell, that's the ultimate creation.

The day before, Yva sold spoons in Plaza del Pi. Teaspoons she'd sent to artists she knows around the world. Some were international art hot shots like Lucio Pozzi, the Italian painter last seen at Art Basel, and Belgian Johan Grimonprez, the filmmaking Belgian who brought us 'Double Take', a meditation on Hitchcock and an accidental doppelganger. She asked them to create a sample of their work that fits in the spoon, and then set a price for it. Some artists requested as much as 200 euros for their spoon sample. Others wanted only a photo of the buyer, or requested the buyer hold hands with Yva for a few minutes as payment. One sample was set as priceless. The little boy who bought this one decided a hug and kiss, literally, fit the bill.

It's these stories, beyond the tangible art; what Yva, in her lilting English calls, "accidents" that she's in search of. Sparks. Magic. Curiosities. The sublime. That which, as Kant says, reveals something in excess of the object.

The best is to see it for yourself. Like that time she sold bags of artists' breath in Union Square, and that performance yeilded another.


Spring Sale on Saturdays from Yva Jung on Vimeo.


Photos via Joel Ventura