Be an artist, right now!

In this funny and friendly talk, renowned Korean novelist
Young-ha Kim talks about why each one of us needs to be an artist. Sharing his old memories of younger days as an example, he argues that this world gives us hundreds of reasons to refrain from being artistic. However, it is not those hundreds of reasons but only one reason, he insists, that really makes you an artist. He appeals to us to have an artistic mind for the sake of our own joy and happiness, and the multiple identities we may have in the future.

The theme of my talk today is,

"Let's become an artist, right now."

Most people, when the subject is brought up, get tense

and start to resist a little in their hearts:

"Art doesn't feed me, and right now I'm busy."

"I have to go to school, get a job,

do lots of things, and send my kids to lessons."

You think, "I'm too busy and have no time for art".

There are hundreds of reasons why we cannot become artists right now.

Don't they just pop up in your heads?

There are so many reasons why we can't be.

Indeed, we're not sure why we should be.

We don't know why we should be artists

but have lots of reasons why we can't be.

Why do people instantly resist the idea of associating themselves with art?

Perhaps you think that art is for the greatly gifted

or for the thoroughly and professionally trained,

and some of you here may think that you have strayed too far from art.

Well you might, but I don't think so.

That is the theme of my talk today.

We are all born artists.

If you have kids, you know what I mean.

Almost everything kids do is art.

They draw with crayons on the wall,

and dance Son Dam Bi's dance on TV when

you can't even call it Son Dam Bi's dance -- it's the kid's own dance, actually.

So they dance a strange dance, and they sing and torture everybody.

Perhaps the quality of their art is something that

only their parents can bear -- (Laughter) -- and because they do such art all day long,

people honestly get a little tired around kids.

A child sometimes performs a monodrama --

playing house is indeed a monodrama, a kind of a play.

And some kids, when they get a bit older,

start to lie.

In general, parents remember the very first time their kids lied.

They get shocked.

"Now you're showing your true colors," Mom says, thinking, "Why does he take after his dad?"

and chides the kid, "What kind of a person are you going to be?"

But you need not worry.

The moment kids start to lie is the beginning of storytelling.(Laughter)

They are talking about things they didn't see.

It's amazing. It's a wonderful moment.

Parents should celebrate. (Laughter) (Applause)

"Hurray! My boy finally started to lie!"

All right! It calls for celebration.

For example, "Mom, guess what? I met an alien on my way home," says a kid.

Then a typical mom says, "Stop that nonsense," and tells the kid off.

Now, an ideal parent is someone who responds like this:

"Really? An alien, huh? What did it look like? Did it say anything?

Where did you meet it?" "Um, in front of the supermarket."

When you have a conversation like this,

then the kid says the next thing, to be responsible for the nonsense he started.

And then says the next thing, and

this develops a story. Of course this is an infantile story,

but thinking one sentence after the next, and then the next,

is indeed doing the same thing as a professional writer like me does.

In essence, they are not different.

Roland Barthes once said of Flaubert's novels,

"Flaubert did not write a novel.

He merely connected one sentence after another.

The eros between sentences, that is the essence of Flaubert's novel," he said.

That's right. A novel basically is writing one sentence,

and then, within the scope of not violating the first one,

writing the next sentence.

And you continue to make connections.

Take a look at this sentence.

["One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in his bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug."] Sure, you can guess where it's from, right?

Yes. It is the first sentence of Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis."

Writing such an unjustifiable sentence -- (Laughter) --

and then continuing, in order to justify the first one, became what is indeed

the masterpiece of contemporary literature -- Kafka's "Metamorphosis," nothing more.

He wrote the sentence but didn't show it to his father.

Kafka was not on good terms with his father.

On his own, he wrote the following sentences. If he had shown it

to his father, "My boy has finally lost it," he would've thought.

That's right. Art is about going a little nuts

and justifying the next sentence,

which is not much different from what a kid does.

A kid that has just started to lie

is taking the first step as a storyteller.

Now, kids do art.

They don't get tired, and they have fun doing it.

I was in Jeju Island a few days ago;

there, when kids are on the beach, most of them love playing in the water.

But some of them spend a lot of time in the sand,

making mountains and sea -- well, not sea,

but different things -- people and dogs, etc.

But parents tell them,

"It will all be washed away by the wave."

In other words, it's useless;

there is no need.

But kids don't mind.

They have fun in the moment

and they keep playing with the sand.

Kids don't do it because somebody told them to.

They aren't told by their boss

or anybody, they just do it.

I'm sure when you were little, you definitely had a moment enjoying the pleasure of primitive art.

When I ask my students to write about their happiest moment,

a lot of them write about a primitive artistic experience they had when they were little.

Learning to play piano for the first time and playing four hands with a friend,

or performing a ridiculous skit with a friend looking like idiots -- things like that.

Or the moment when you developed the first film that you shot with an old camera.

They talk about experiences like that.

You must have had such a moment.

In that moment, art makes you happy

because it's not work.

Work doesn't make you happy, does it? Mostly it's tough.

The French writer Michel Tournier has a famous saying.

It's a bit mischievous, actually:

"Work is against human nature. The proof is that it makes us tired." Right? (Laughter)

Why would it tire us if it is in our nature?

Playing doesn't tire us;

we can play all night long.

If we work overnight, we should be paid for overtime.

Why? Because it's tiring and we feel fatigue.

But kids, usually they do art for fun. It's playing.

They don't draw to sell the work to a client

or play the piano to earn money for the family.

Of course, there were kids who had to.

You know this gentleman, right?

He had to tour around Europe to support his family --

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart --

but that was centuries ago, so let's make him an exception.

Unfortunately, at some point our art -- such a joyful pastime -- ends.

Kids have to go to lessons, to school, do homework,

and of course they get piano or ballet lessons, but

they aren't fun anymore.

You're told to do it and there is competition. How can it be fun?

If you're in elementary school and you still draw on the wall,

you'll surely get it from your mom.

Besides,

if you continue to act like an artist as you get older,

you'll increasingly feel that you're pressured --

people check your actions and ask you to act properly.

Let me give you my story: I was an eighth grader and I went to a drawing contest at school in Gyeongbokgung.

I was doing the best I could, but then

my teacher came around and asked me, "What are you doing?"

"I'm drawing diligently," I said.

"Why are you using only black?"

Indeed, I was eagerly coloring the sketchbook in black.

And I explained,

"It's a dark night and a crow is perching on a branch."

Then my teacher said,

"Really? Well, Young-ha, you may not be good at drawing but you have talent as a storyteller."

Or so I wished.

"Now you'll get it, you rascal!" was the response. (Laughter)

"You'll get it!" he said.

You were supposed to draw the palace, the Gyeonghoeru, etc.,

but I was alone coloring everything in black,

so he dragged me out of the group.

There were a lot of girls as well,

and I was utterly mortified.

None of my explanations or excuses were heard,

and I really had it big time.

If he was an ideal teacher, he would have responded like I said before:

"Young-ha has no talent in drawing," he would have thought,

"but has a gift in making things up," and he would have

encouraged me. But such a teacher is seldom found.

Later, I grew up and went to Europe's galleries --

I was a university student -- and I thought

it really was unfair. Look what I found. (Laughter) (Cheering)

I mean, works like this were hung in Basel

while I was beaten -- (Laughter) -- and stood in front of the palace with my drawing in my mouth.

Look at this. Doesn't it look just like wallpaper?

Contemporary art, I found out later,

isn't explained by a lame story like mine. No crows are brought up.

Most of the works have no title, Untitled.

Anyways, contemporary art in the 20th century

is about doing something weird and then filling the void with explanation and interpretation,

essentially the same as what I did.

Of course, my work was on a very amateur level,

but let's turn to more famous examples.

Right. This is Picasso's.

He stuck a handle into a bike saddle and called it Bull's Head. Sounds convincing, right?

Next, a urinal was placed and called Fountain --

a ready-made fountain. That was Duchamp.

So filling the gap between an explanation and a weird act

with a story -- that's indeed what contemporary art is all about.

Picasso even made the statement,

"I draw not what I see but what I think."

Yes, it means I didn't have to draw Gyeonghoeru.

I wish I had known what Picasso said back then. Then I could've argued better with my teacher.

Unfortunately, the little artists inside us

are choked to death before we get to fight against the oppressors of art.

They get locked in.

That's our tragedy.

What happens when such a little artist gets locked in, banished or killed?

Our desires don't go away.

We want to express, to reveal ourselves,

but with the artists dead, the artistic desires are revealed in dark forms.

In the karaoke bar, there are always people who sing

"She's Gone" or "Hotel California,"

miming the guitar riffs.

Usually they sound awful. Awful indeed.

Some people turn into rockers like this.

Or some people dance in clubs.

People who would have had much greater pleasure telling stories

end up trolling on the Internet all night long -- that is how

the talent of writing reveals itself on the dark side.

Sometimes we see the dads playing with their kids get more excited

building Lego blocks or putting together plastic robots.

They go, "Don't touch it. Dad will do it for you."

The kid has already lost interest and is doing something else,

but the dad alone builds castles and stuff.

This shows that the artistic impulses inside us are just suppressed, not gone.

It often reveals itself negatively, in the form of jealousy.

You know the song "I would love to be on TV"? Why would we love it?

TV is full of people who do what we always wished to

but never got to do.

They not only dance and act -- the more they do, the better praise they get.

And so we start to envy them vehemently.

We become a dictator with a remote, and start to abuse the people on TV.

"He just can't act." "You call that singing? She can't hit the notes."

We easily say things like that.

We get jealous not because we're evil,

but because we have the little artists pent up inside us.

That's what I think.

Then what should we do?

Yes, that's right.

Right now, we need to start our own art.

Right this minute, we can turn off TV,

log off the Internet,

get up and start to do something.

When I teach students in drama school,

it's not mine, but there's a course called Dramatics.

In this course, all students must put on a play.

However, acting majors should not act.

They can, for example, write the play,

and those who write well may work on stage art.

Likewise, stage art majors may become actors, and in this way

you put on a show. Students at first wonder whether they can actually do it,

but later they have so much fun. I rarely saw anyone who gets miserable doing a play.

In a school or in the military, even in a mental institution, once you make the people do it, they'll definitely enjoy it a lot.

I saw people like that in the army. A lot of people had fun doing a play.

I have another experience:

In my writing class, I give students an assignment like this.

I have students like you guys in the class, and many of them don't major in writing.

Some major in art, some in music, and they think they can't write.

So I give them blank sheets of paper and a theme.

For example, it can be a simple theme:

Write about the most unfortunate experience in your childhood.

On one condition -- you must write like crazy. Like crazy!

I walk around and encourage them,

"Come on, come on!" So you have to write like crazy for one or two hours.

You only get to think for the first five minutes.

The reason I make them write like crazy is because

when you write slowly and lots of thoughts cross your mind,

the artistic devil creeps in.

This devil will tell you hundreds of reasons

why you can't write:

"People will laugh at you. This is no writing!

What kind of sentence is this? Look at your handwriting!"

It will say a lot of things.

You have to run fast so the devil can't catch up.

The really good writing I had in my class

was not from the assignments with a long deadline,

but from the 40- to 60-minute crazy writing the students did

in front of me in pencil.

The students go into some kind of a trance.

After 30 or 40 minutes, they just write without knowing what they're writing.

But in such a moment, the nagging devil does not appear.

So I can say this:

It is not the hundreds of reasons why one can't be an artist,

but the one reason that one must be, that makes us artists.

Why we cannot be something is not important.

Most artists became artists because of the one reason.

Now, when we put the devil in our heart to sleep, and start our own art,

enemies appear outside.

Mostly, they have the faces of our parents. (Laughter)

Sometimes they look like our spouses,

but they are not your parents or spouses.

They are devils. (Laughter) Devils.

They came to Earth briefly transformed

to stop you from being artistic, becoming artists.

And they have a magic question.

When we say, "I think I'll try acting. There is this drama school in the community center," or

"I am thinking of learning Italian songs," they ask, "Oh, yeah? A play? What for?"

The magic question, "What for?" This is what they ask. (Laughter)

But art is not for anything.

Art is the ultimate goal.

It saves our souls and makes us live happily.

It helps us to be happy without the help of alcohol or drugs and to express ourselves.

So against such a question, such a pragmatic question,

we need to be bold.

"Well, just for the fun of it. Sorry for having fun without you,"

is what you should say. "I'll just go ahead and do it, sorry."

The ideal future I imagine is where all of us have multiple identities,

at least one of them being an artist.

I once went to New York and got in a cab. I took the backseat,

and in front of me I saw something related to a play.

So I asked the driver, "What is this?"

He said that it was his personal profile. "Then what are you?" I asked. He said he's an actor.

He was a cabby who acts. I asked, "What roles do you usually play?"

He proudly said that he's King Lear.

King Lear.

"Who is it that can tell me who I am?" --

a great line from King Lear. That's the world I dream of.

There's a golfer by day and writer by night.

A cabby and actor, and a banker and painter,

secretly or publicly performing their own arts.

In 1990, Martha Graham, the legend of modern dance, came to Korea.

The great artist, in her 90s, arrived at Gimpo Airport,

and a reporter asked her -- a typical question by reporters --

"What do you have to do to be a great dancer?" (Laughter)

"Any advice for aspiring Korean dancers?"

Now, she was the master. This was taken in 1948. She was already a celebrated artist back then.

In 1990, she was asked the question.

And this is what she said:

"Just do it." (Laughter)

Wow. I was touched.

Only those three words, and she left the airport.

That is it. What is it that we need right now?

Let's be an artist, right now. Right away. How?

Just do it!

Thank you.

(Applause)