After skillfully exposing global voyeurism in The Disaster Tourist (2020), award-winning Korean writer Yun Ko-eun, gratifyingly paired again with agile translator Lizzie Buehler, brilliantly skewers the art industry in Art on Fire. Nine years ago, the photo Canyon Proposal transformed the art world when the photographer was revealed to be canine--a Papillon named Robert. The photo caught the late daughter of octogenarian businessman Mr Waldmann, understandably sparking his interest in Robert. Mr Waldmann invites Robert to his Palm Springs, Calif., villa where Robert becomes a "permanent guest." Man and dog publicly enjoy art museums together. Upon Mr Waldmann's death, Robert is installed as head of the Robert Foundation.
Over the past seven years, the foundation has supported 20 artists with generous, four-month residencies at the Robert Museum of Art in Palm Springs. It's become "one of the most impressive lines in [artists'] resumes." An Yiji, whose art career has stagnated while she struggles with low ratings working for a delivery app in Seoul, receives the latest invitation. Skeptically shocked, she needs "a few Google searches... [to realize] my dream had come true." Let the surreality begin.
Getting to Palm Springs is rather an ordeal: her airport pick-up never shows, Los Angeles fires cause extensive delays. Losing patience, Yiji manages to secure her own ride, but is chastised when she arrives--and inexplicably treated like "an uninvited guest." Even Robert joins in the rebuke in a not-welcome letter, signed in gold-inked pawprint. At least he's more affable when Yiji meets him at dinner, complimenting her orange dress and teal shoes. Communication isn't exactly direct between dog and artist, requiring a black box and three intermediary interpreters, and still "phoenix" somehow becomes "a mythical Korean pigeon." Between command meals with Robert, trail runs with rentable canine companions, scouting inspirational locations in a foundation-supplied Lamborghini, Yiji creates her art. Always looming is the residency's draconian demand: the "incineration of one piece by artist, to be chosen by the Robert Foundation," on the last day of the exhibition. Yiji may have signed her contract, but she isn't ready to comply.
Yun's quotables are countless, her exposés relentless, not the least of which is, of course, that art's ultimate gatekeeping has gone to the dogs. The most valuable piece here turns out to be literal shit (microwaved, formaldehyded, resined, varnished). Yun's clever layers are many, producing a biting demand to confront the deification (and commodification) of art, and the unchallenged assumptions of (mis)communication. --Terry Hong
Shelf Talker: Yun Ko-eun gloriously takes on the art world, hysterically, delectably, thoroughly exposing its gatekeepers, makers, and audiences.