Wish You a Lovely Sunday is Young-jun Tak’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, and it is the premiere of his video of the same title.
The video boldly combines and juxtaposes two distinctive spatial settings—a church and a queer club. For this filmic work, two choreographers and two dancers were paired up to create a new choreography, for the church “Kirche am Südstern” and the queer club “SchwuZ” in Berlin respectively. Each pair was assigned to a different Bach piano piece for four hands. After days of rehearsals and when the choreography was complete, their designated venues were then swapped. The participants did not know the exact location they would perform in until the actual day of filming, and, therefore, they had to reprogram their choreographies according to the new architectural features and atmosphere of the changed location.
Although churches and queer clubs seem to function for starkly different purposes, both spaces share intriguing similarities as they both require specific rituals, behavioral norms, and attitudes closely linked to the space and its role. Both venues could be said to be fundamentally community-oriented spaces, which seek to offer comfort and welfare for either the visitor’s mind or body. In the film, the continuous change of scenes between the two kind of spaces with the dancer’s bodily presence, their movements, and dialogues, aims at achieving a sort of almost impossible mergence or coexistence of religious practice on one side and club culture on the other side. In this 17 minutes video, we follow the protagonists’ struggles, passion, and commitment in trying to adjust their choreographies to fit into the new contexts.
Age limit: 18+
Young-jun Tak (born in 1989 in Seoul, South Korea) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. His works have been exhibited at 11th Berlin Biennale (2020), Hall Art Foundation / Schloss Derneburg Museum (2020), Diskurs Berlin (2019), Seoul Museum of Art, SeMA Bunker (2019), Brandenburgischer Kunstverein Potsdam (2018), PS120 (2018, Berlin), 15th Istanbul Biennial (2017), König Galerie (2016, Berlin) among others.
Wish You a Lovely Sunday, 2021
Single Channel HD Video (Color, 5-Channel Sound), 17 minutes
Credits
Director & Producer Young-jun Tak
Dancer Yi-Chi Lee
Choreographer Jee Chan
Dancer Daniel Norgren-Jensen
Choreographer Liam Warren
Line Producer Elsa Triquet-Rey
Director of Photography Jubal Battisti
Second Camera Operator Pippa Samaya
Gaffer Alex DePew
Sound Recordist Robert Klemm
Editor Clémentine Decremps
Sound Mixer Guy Henderson
Colorist Sergej Jurisdizkij
Locations
Kirche am Südstern, Berlin
SchwuZ, Berlin
Music
Lucas & Arthur Jussen—J.S. Bach: “Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd” Cantata, BWV 208 (arr. Mary Howe for two pianos): 9. Schafe können sicher weiden (P) 2019 Molto Piano VOF, courtesy of Universal Music GmbH
Lucas & Arthur Jussen—J.S. Bach: “Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit,” BWV 106 (Transcr. for Piano Four Hands by György Kurtàg): 2a. Gottes Zeit, ist die allerbeste Zeit (P) 2019 Molto Piano VOF, courtesy of Universal Music GmbH
Photographs at SchwuZ
Jürgen Baldiga, Self-portrait
Jürgen Baldiga, Melitta Sundström, 1988
Supported by Arts Council Korea, and Center Stage, Moscow, New York
