The document provides a curatorial statement and background information for an exhibition titled "Evidence" curated by Seoyoung Kim. The exhibition featured works by 6 artists including Jeamin Cha, Mariam Ghani, Clemens Krauss, Dinh Q. Lê, Mariana Vassileva and Jui-Chung Yao. Each artist's work explored overlooked or obscured historical narratives and social histories through various artistic mediums such as video, photographs and drawings. The exhibition aimed to bring a range of artistic approaches to rethinking stories that have been overshadowed by social histories.

1. Evidence
Curated by Seoyoung Kim
November 27th 2015 - January 27th 2016
In DNA Berlin, Auguststraße 20, 10117 Berlin, Germany

2. Contents
1.Curatorial statement………………………………… 1
2. Participant document………………………………. 7
• Jeamin Cha
• Mariam Ghani
• Clemens Krauss
• Dinh Q. Lê
• Mariana Vassileva
• Jui-Chung Yao
3. Contact……………………………………………… 15

3. 1
Curatorial statement

4. 2
Evidence
November 27th, 2015 - January 27th, 2016
in DNA Berlin, Auguststr. 20, 10117 Berlin, Germany
Curated by Seoyoung Kim
The exhibition Evidence is to understand those images in their own
pictorial dignity, which can be described by a reflection from Paul Valéry
on the specific abilities of images. He writes, “An image is more than an
image and sometimes shows more than the object of which it is an image.”
But, most of all, this exhibition aims to bring a range of artistic approaches
and rethinking about the stories that have been overshadowed by social
histories. These approaches are drawn from works of Jeamin Cha,
Mariam Ghani, Clemens Krauss, Dinh Q. Lê , Mariana Vassileva and Jui-
Chung Yao.
Jeamin Cha represented in “Autodidact” (2014) suspicious death of Won-
Keun Hur during his military service in 1984. The unofficial forensic
investigator, Youngchun Hur, who is the father of Won-Keun Hur, taught
himself forensic medicine to reveal the truth, since his son’s death was
not clear by an official investigation. The “Autodidact” (2014) shows
magnified images of Mr. Hur’s investigative materials he studied and
examined along with his handwritings. At the same time, two narrators,
Mr. Hur and a man in his early twenties, tell a story which topic of
conversation included politics, life and forensic. In her other video work
“Hysterics” (2014) was inspired in part by Heinrich Heine’s poem “The
Vale of Tears” in which a coroner reveals the cause of death of a
miserable couple. She focused on the fact that the death of a couple is
what is excluded in the situation, conceiving a relationship between
hysteria and the agent that raises questions. This work attempts to stage
‘meaninglessness’ and a hysteric state as a theatrical situation where
white papers and a specific kind of lighting interact with each other. It
refers to the quote: “Pain makes people raise questions, and those who
question become hysteric. Those who refuse to take plausible
explanation and attempt to find the fundamental reason constantly raise
questions.” The “Hysterics” (2014) has guided us those who are in this
hysteric state, the ones that raise questions until the end discover other
individuals who become victims.

5. 3
Mariam Ghani found that the Friedricianum Museum in Kassel, Germany
has architectural similarity to the palace Dar ul-Aman in Kabul,
Afghanistan. The ruined Dar ul-Aman Palace, located on the periphery of
the capital city of Afghanistan. The construction of Amanullah’s new city
of Dar ul-Aman represented a radical break with traditional building
design, materials, and techniques. While many Germans collaborated on
the project, it was funded entirely by Afghan resources, without
international assistance, since Amnullah’s reign represents the only
period in Afghan history when the country subsisted without foreign aid.
In “A Brief History of Collapses” (2012) she described these two buildings
with two video channels in relation to architectural layout and details, but
each represents its own narratives. Over the similarities and differences
of architectural images, it can be shared with an aesthetic evidence of the
collapse and restoration based on their historical, political and social
stories.
Clemens Krauss found one of last living evidence of Adolf Hitler's regime.
In “The Taster” (2013), an old lady, named Margot Wölk (b. 1917, Berlin)
is shown without any explanation about her testimony. She is eating
something with casual manners. The viewer cannot deduce what she was
in the reality from these images, but actually, she was taster for Adolf
Hitler at the end of World War II whose task was to prevent his death by
poisoning. It seems to be obvious that many historically overshadowed
things have often been forgotten and no one knows how they
disappeared.

6. 4
Dinh Q. Lê collected drawings by Vietcong artists. In 1978, when Dinh Q.
Lê was ten years old, his family escaped from their town Ha Tien in
Vietnam, where was under attack by the Khmer Rouge. After they have
taken refuge in America, he had grown up with object that went back
many generations inside the family. He thinks collecting objects, for him,
is a way to connect to a longer history. This might explain why he collects
many drawings of Vietcong artists. His work “Light and Belief” (2012) is a
documentary Film about Vietcong artists who participated in the Vietnam
War. This war was not just a war of liberation against a colonial power.
Especially, the Second Indochina War was for people in North against the
imperialist Americans and for people in South against North Vietnamese
Communists. For this reason, in Vietnam, there were a lot of issues that
they haven’t been allowed to discuss since the end of the Vietnam War.
On this way, he is trying to understand what happened between the First
Indochina War and the Second Indochina War that led Vietnam into a civil
war through his work, which is about, in part, to understand mindset of
these drawing artists who participated in the war, on the Hanoi side, the
Communist side. Through his “Light and Belief” (2012) we can
understand how different they have experienced the Vietnam War.
Mariana Vassileva represented historical story of Kronstadt, which is St.
Petersburg's main seaport and century-old army-town near the head of
Gulf of Finland in Russia and a ballet dancer from the St. Petersburg
Mariinski Ballet. The main part of the footage for “Kronstadt” (2014), has
been combined with studio sequences of the ballet dancer and images
found on the internet, television advertisement traversing the urban and
natural landscapes of Kronstadt. As a historical site for political struggle,
to which Kronstadt's famous fortifications unrelentingly attest, the
performing ballet and its aesthetic expression controvert the shooting
cannon in her video. However, what if we rethink about this that Russia's
current cultural climate of censorship and infringement of freedom, or
consider that we comfort to passively sit back and read in a narrative
mode?

7. 5
Jui-Chung Yao represented the politic of storytelling that comes from
Hsinhai Revolution in Taiwan. “Long Live” (2011) shows Kinmen Island,
which was the Nationalists' first line of defense against Communists
during the Cold War in Taiwan. In view of the grim battlefield in Kinmen
Island, the shout Wansui! (meaning “ten thousand years”) is being
repeated and resonates through the loudspeakers. Beyond the speakers,
the Generalissimo is also calling for Wansui! in reflection of the derelict
hall Chieh-shou. Literally it refers to the long live for Chiang Kai-shek (the
leader of Nationalists). It seems obvious that the propaganda for an
eternal empire reflected an eternal repetition of history. As Hannah Arendt
wrote: “storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of
defining. It brings about consent and reconciliation with things as they
really are.”
The exhibition will open on Thursday, November 26th
, 2015 and run until
Wednesday, January 27th
, 2016 at DNA Berlin.

8. 6
About the curator
Seoyoung Kim is curator and art historian based in Berlin, Germany and
in Seoul, South Korea. After finishing her studies in Art History and East
Asian Art History, she received degrees of History and Cultural Studies
from Freie Universität Berlin. Her recent curatorial works include
"Evidence" (2015), "Making Border: Afterimages and Projections" (2015),
"Topological Constellation: Art and Architecture” (2014) and
"Res(v)olution: Temporary Screening" (2013) at the DNA Berlin. Also, she
organized “Protection and Preservation of Cultural Heritage on the
Korean Peninsula” (2013) at the Asian Art Museum, National Museums in
Berlin, while she is involved in the planning of the research project at the
Freie Universität Berlin. She also participated in the curatorial workshop
jointly organized by Tate London and Mori Art Museum Tokyo (2014).
Currently, she is project coordinator of region design and planning at the
Gyeonggi Creation Center, Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation in South Korea.
Assistant curators
Jeonghun Lee
Dora Vasilakou
Iwona Ogrodzka

9. 7
Participant document
Jeamin Cha
Mariam Ghani
Clemens Krauss
Dinh Q. Lê
Mariana Vassileva
Jui-Chung Yao

10. 8
JEAMIN CHA
Born in 1986 in Seoul, South Korea.
Lives and Works in Seoul
Jeamin Cha is an artist and filmmaker based in Seoul, Korea. She used
video as a her primary medium. She is making video about social and
political dissonance. Specifically, she features the environment and the
conditions of life, such as equality and distribution. She looks at society,
inner conflicts, and antagonisms and considers about the way to express
the ever-present contradictions and dissent within it.
Her works begin mostly from articles and stories of daily life. She tries to
find ways to intervene in social and political issues. Her intervention is a
sensitive form of expression, which rouses questions. Therefore, she
constitutes her works with reconstructed and directed images. She
received degrees, Master of Art from Chelsea College of Design and Arts,
London, UK and Bachelor of Fine Art from Korean National University of
Arts, Seoul, Korea.
Her works has been featured in numerous international exhibition and
screenings at Audiovisual Pavilion Seoul (2015), DOOSAN Gallery
(2014/15), DMZ Film Festival (2014), Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin
(2013), Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2012), Culture Station Seoul 284 (2012),
Daegu Culture and Art Center(2010), Total Museum of Contemporary Art
(2010).
Recently, her video works ,,Hysteric’’(2014) and ,,Autodidact’’(2014) has
been invited to Forum Expanded 2015: To the Sound of the Closing Door,
Berlinale at Akademie der Künste, Berlin, German

11. 9
MARIAM GHANI
Born in New York, United States of America, in 1978.
Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York
Mariam Ghani is an artist, filmmaker, writer, and educator based in
Brooklyn, NYC. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from School of Visual
Arts, New York and a Bachelor of Art from New York University. Within
her personal experiences her works explore her mother country,
Afghanistan history. But her projects do not just revolve around areas
pertaining to her “ethnic ties”. She also deals with places, memories and
languages, that reconstruct spatial history across contemporary time
frames.
Her works has been featured in numerous international institutions that
include at the New Museum in New York(2014), dOCUMENTA 13 (2012),
Museum of Modern Art in New York (2011), Sharjah Biennials 10 and 8
(2011/09), National Gallery in Washington D.C (2008), Tate Modern in
London (2007) among others. She is also participated in the previous
DNA Berlin's exhibition Making Border: Afterimages and Projections
(2015) curated by Seoyoung Kim.
Special thanks to RYAN GALLERY, New York.

12. 10
CLEMENS KRAUSS
Born in Graz, Austria, in 1979.
Lives and work in Berlin.
Clemens Krauss’s works refer to experiences offered and created by
mass media and the ensuing questions of dislocation and mobility, and
the individual’s notion of identity. He transfers the situation and
appropriation of media perception into a painterly process. As models for
the painted bodies he uses the postures of the people whom we meet in
the globally circulating picture world. In this sense, the work on a picture,
its arrangements and various re-combinations, may also be regarded as a
kind of visual sampling, which transforms the media experience and, as
staged “social structure”, takes up a stance of its own.
His video work “The Taster” (2013) shows an evidence of Adolf Hitler’s
regime. This evidence is an old lady who named Margot Wölk(b.1917,
Berlin). In Video she continues to eat something without any explanation
about her history, which he tried to reveal the fact historically
overshadowed during last decades. She is just shown as an image.
Therefore viewer could not realize which stories this image has. This is
just visually adopted to them. However, she was actually a taster for Adolf
Hitler at the end of World War II. With this unrevealed historically stories
image of old lady could be shown more than an image.
Clemens Krauss’s artistic focus expanded to performative embodiment of
social and media experience. To approach his artistic aim, he often has
combined oft his works with text fragments or statements which reflect a
variety of discussions about concept of the body, aesthetics, politics,
history and society in the broadest sense.
He has participated in numerous international exhibitions that include
Museum für moderne Kunst in Weserburg (2014), Videonale.14 (2013),
Curitiba Biennial (2013), Künslterhaus Bethanien (2013), Metropolitan
Museum of Manila (2012), HDLU/ Croatian Biennale (2011), Berlinische
Galerie (2010), Haus am Waldsee (2009), Museu de Arte Moderna(2008),
Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art (2002) among others

13. 11
DINH Q. LÊ
Born in 1968 in Hà Tiên, Vietnam
Lives and works in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
Dinh Q. Lê is Vietnamese-American artist and executive director of Sàn
Art. In 1978, Hà Tiên - a hometown of artist, was under the attack by
Khmer Rouge and under the Communist regime. His parents decided to
leave everything behind and move to the USA. This event has strongly
impact on all Lê’s live. His passion traces the roof of his family that reveal
his adult collecting impulse. He collects a lot of Vietnamese ceramics and
antiquities from Southeast Asia.
Light and Belief is composed of a video documentary and one hundred
drawings collected by Dinh Q. Lê. The authors of these images are
Vietnamese men and women who served as soldiers on the frontline of
the Vietnam War. He had seen them first time in the museum in Ho Chi
Minh City (Saigong). Tranquility of images and idyllic landscapes
fascinated the artist so he decided to collect them. In 2005, Catherine de
Zegher organized an exhibition on the Vietnam War at the Drawing
Center (Persistent Vestiges) that he was invited to participate in. For that
reason, Dinh Q. Lê went to Hanoi to meet with authors of the drawings.
That meeting has intensified his interest.
The artistic strategy and impact of Dinh Q. Lê’s work arise from interface
of past narratives and the shaping of the present. Light and Belief aims to
provoke a question about the civil war in Vietnam and part of history in
this country, which still seems to be obscured.
Dinh Q. Lê obtained the degrees, Master of Fine Arts in the department of
Photography and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts, New York
and Bachelor of Fine Arts from University of California, Santa Barbara. He
has had solo exhibitions at the Mori Art Museum Tokyo (2015), Sherman
Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney (2011), and MoMA, New York
(2010). His recent group exhibitions have included the dOCUMENTA
Kassel (2012), Asian Art Biennial (2012), National Museum of Art, Osaka
(2011), Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2008) and Fukuoka Triennale
(2009). In 2010, he received the Prince Claus Award

14. 12
MARIANA VASSILEVA
Born in Antonovo, Bulgaria in 1964. Lives and work in Berlin, Germany
Mariana Vassileva has been living and working in Berlin for more than 20
years. Many of her art works reflect the two stages of her life related to
living in two different countries, as well as to the acquisition of a foreign
language and the adjustment to new cultural and social environment. The
artist never severed her from her native country. This state of parallel
existence provokes the creation of unusual images and strong emotions.
Childhood flashbacks come back to the artist’s new surroundings.
Mariana's rigorous observation of life is accompanied by a romantic
nostalgia for the past, resulting in artworks full of poetic sensitivity. Her art
not only mirrors her own experiences and inner conflicts, but is also tied
to social & political issues, as well as to philosophical questions. She
uses common tools of expression in an inimitable way.
Mariana Vassileva uses various means of expression to present her ideas.
She has participated in numerous international exhibitions such as Sofia
City Art Gallery (2015), Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (2015), Museum für
moderne Kunst in Bremen (2014), Busan Biennale (2014), Trienal no
Alentejo in Lisboa (2013), Centre Pompidou in Paris (2012), Kunstverein
Augsburg (2012), The 4th
Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2011),
Tate Britain in London (2008), Museo Reina Sofia (Madrid) among others.

15. 13
JUI-CHUNG YAO
Born in Taipei, in 1969
Lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan
Jui-Chung Yao specializes in photography, installation and painting. The
themes of his works are numerous, but most importantly they all examine
the absurdity of the human condition. Recently, he has assembled all the
black and white photos of ruins he took in the past fifteen years, grouped
under the themes of industry, religious idols, architecture and military
bases. They reveal the enormous ideological black hole in Taiwan hidden
behind the trends of globalization and Taiwan’s specific historical
background as a continuation of the main theme of his work. Also, he
appropriates masterpieces from Chinese art history and recreates them in
his own way, transforming them into his personal history or real stories in
an attempt to turn grand narratives into the trivial affairs of his individual
life.
His works have been presented in numerous international institutions
such as National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art (2015) in Taichung, New
Museum (2015) in New York, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (2014) in
Kaohsiung, Seoul Metropolitan City Museum of Art (2014) in Seoul,
Taipei Contemporary Art Center (2014) in Taipei, Singapore Art Museum
(2014) in Singapore, Saatchi Gallery (2014) in London and Museum of
Contemporary Art (2013) in Shanghai among others. Currently, he
teaches at National Taiwan Normal University Department of Fine Arts.

16. 14
DNA - Die Neue Aktionsgalerie GmbH
Auguststraße 20
10117 Berlin
Germany
Commercial register: Local district court Charlottenburg HRB 92252
Tel. + 49 (0)30 28 59 96 52
Fax + 49 (0)30 28 59 96 54
staff@dna-galerie.de