CHICLETE (GUM)
About
2021 By presenting the recitation of a poem in Korean alongside an image of a piece of gum, whose shape resembles a human face, "Gum" offers a certain feeling of strangeness to the viewer. The work addresses the idea of difficulty in understanding and communicating, at the same time that it explores the desire to find meaning in the face of what we do not yet understand. To develop this work, artist Eduardo Montelli, who does not speak the Korean language, studied Kim Ki-taek's poem during the period of social isolation in 2020 and 2021, seeking to memorize the words and perfect their pronunciation with the help of videos and language teaching apps. The poem consists of a description of the "life history" of a piece of gum that was simply chewed and discarded by a random person, and which now passes time peacefully like a fossil full of tooth marks.