Thousand Kisses, In My Living room

2010
Indoor plants from the artist’s parents home, the artist’s sweaters, scissors, video installation
8 hours, 1 day
Get This! Gallery | Atlanta, Georgia
Photography by Lauren Hughes

Hur often brings her autobiography literally into her practice. In this performance, Thousand Kisses, In My Living Room, the artist installs the entire collection of her parents’ indoor plants in a gallery. For eight hours, Hur then sits on the floor obsessively, at times hysterically, cutting her winter sweaters into shreds. The artist stands to kiss every single plant and whispers the “Lord’s Prayers” in her mother tongue. On the side of the installation, a TV is playing a looped video of the artist’s mother hand washing dishes and a Korean pastor preaching on salvation. Hur sits back and seeks for salvation with her body as she continues cutting the sweaters.

“I kiss the houseplants, emulating the adoring care they have received from the ones who bore and raised me.

I whisper the prayers my parents taught me, hoping for my own regrets to wash away.

I watch and I listen.

I fall asleep, savoring every word, sound, and image- allowing them all to converge as a poetic panorama, rather than an aching reality.”

-An excerpt from “Thousand Kisses, In My living Room” (2010)