for jaywalking.

The movie doesn’t get much more explicit in its portrayal of the conflict between humanity and authority than that, as indeed it couldn’t have, laboring as it did under the close eye of the censor back then. Before its original release 42 years ago, officials demanded the cutting of about half an hour of material they seem to have judged as portraying Korea too negatively, and the student protests, known to happen in the 1970s but which grew into a democracy-bringing phenomenon in the 1980s, manifest only as the suggestion of a suggestion. A more complete cut (the one viewable on the Korean Film Archive’s Youtube channel) emerged in 1980, the year after Park died — but also the year after Ha died, having succumbed to aexhibition is a constant reminder that the objects around us carry meaning within them.

Vo, who fled Vietnam in 1979 with his family when he was 4 years old and was raised in Denmark, brings together objects of personal or national importance, using the museum as a frame through which to examine them. The methodology is consistent: the artist procures objects at auction, buys them from antiques dealers, collects them in gift shops or corner stores, or takes them from his own family, and presents them, often unmodified, like readymades; the focus, however, is on their provenance rather than their status as art. It’s very conceptual, language heavy-work: in order, for example, to know that Oma Totem (2009) – a column stacking a Philips television, Gorenje washing machine, and