Access a slow-looking exercise related to this work.

Transcript
Marilee Talkington: In "An Upside-Down Map of the World", artist Sung Neung Kyung disassembles and then reassembles a paper map. Created in 1974, the installation includes two sections: the first is the original border of the world map that hangs above the second section, a reassembled body of the map which lies parallel to the floor on a light blue platform measuring just over 1 foot high by around 8 1/2 feet square.

The original map was a standard world map typical of government offices and schools in Korea, secured by thin dowels across the top and bottom. In the upper sections of the work, the dowels still remain along with the map’s blue border, about 2 inches thick across the top and the bottom and 1 inch thick along the sides. Inside is an additional 2-inch border of bare paper, faded to a cream color. Along the top, several words are printed in Korean, flanked by the United Nations flag in the left corner and the Korean flag in the right corner. Small flags from various countries line the vertical sides.

Across the bottom border, Sung has left three sections of the original map body intact, while the rest of the border frames empty space. A smaller horizontal world-map inset hugs the bottom-left corner, almost 2 feet long. Sections of the inset are colored yellow, green, and blue, and various swirling lines cross the oceans connecting continents. At the center along the bottom border is a map key about 1 foot long, including textual information and symbols. About 1 foot to its right is another horizontal world-map inset identical in size to the one in the bottom-left corner. This inset has the same layout without the additional lines, and bolder green and yellow highlights on various countries. Both insets are labeled in Korean and feature Africa and Asia on the left side with the Americas on the right side.

In the section on the floor, Sung has cut out three hundred small rectangular pieces from the original map body, each a few inches long, and reassembled them on the blue platform, lying face-up under the remnants of the hanging original. This floor collage is grouped tightly, slightly overlapping, creating a nonsensical map mosaic. Because Sung has reworked the pieces randomly, the sections of pale blues and whites accented by pops of yellow and faded greens like a quilt than a map. Almost the same dimensions as the original above, this new non-map fills most of the platform, except where it ends in a pixelated, jagged edge, cutting a diagonal line along the bottom-right quadrant of the platform, leaving it empty—perhaps a nod to the emptiness of the map border above it.

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