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The theme of my talk today is,

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"Be an artist, right now."

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Most people, when this subject is brought up,

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get tense and resist it:

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

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I have to go to school, get a job,

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send my kids to lessons ... "

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You think, "I'm too busy. I don't have time for art."

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There are hundreds of reasons why we can't be artists right now.

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Don't they just pop into your head?

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

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

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We don't know why we should be artists,

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but we have many reasons why we can't be.

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

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Perhaps you think art is for the greatly gifted

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or for the thoroughly and professionally trained.

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And some of you may think you've strayed too far from art.

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

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This is the theme of my talk today.

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We are all born artists.

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If you have kids, you know what I mean.

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Almost everything kids do is art.

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They draw with crayons on the wall.

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They dance to Son Dam Bi's dance on TV,

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but you can't even call it Son Dam Bi's dance -- it becomes the kids' own dance.

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So they dance a strange dance and inflict their singing on everyone.

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Perhaps their art is something only their parents can bear,

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and because they practice such art all day long,

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people honestly get a little tired around kids.

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Kids will sometimes perform monodramas --

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playing house is indeed a monodrama or a play.

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And some kids, when they get a bit older,

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start to lie.

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Usually parents remember the very first time their kid lies.

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They're shocked.

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

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She questions him, "What kind of a person are you going to be?"

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But you shouldn't worry.

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The moment kids start to lie is the moment storytelling begins.

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They are talking about things they didn't see.

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

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Parents should celebrate.

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"Hurray! My boy finally started to lie!"

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All right! It calls for celebration.

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

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Then a typical mom responds, "Stop that nonsense."

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

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

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

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When you have a conversation like this,

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the kid has to come up with the next thing to say to be responsible for what he started.

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Soon, a story develops.

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Of course this is an infantile story,

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but thinking up one sentence after the next

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is the same thing a professional writer like me does.

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In essence, they are not different.

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Roland Barthes once said of Flaubert's novels,

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"Flaubert did not write a novel.

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He merely connected one sentence after another.

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

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That's right -- a novel, basically, is writing one sentence,

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then, without violating the scope of the first one,

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writing the next sentence.

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And you continue to make connections.

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Take a look at this sentence:

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"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."

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Yes, it's the first sentence of Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis."

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Writing such an unjustifiable sentence

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and continuing in order to justify it,

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Kafka's work became the masterpiece of contemporary literature.

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Kafka did not show his work to his father.

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He was not on good terms with his father.

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On his own, he wrote these sentences.

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

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And that's right. Art is about going a little nuts

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and justifying the next sentence,

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which is not much different from what a kid does.

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A kid who has just started to lie

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is taking the first step as a storyteller.

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Kids do art.

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

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I was in Jeju Island a few days ago.

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

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

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making mountains and seas -- well, not seas,

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but different things -- people and dogs, etc.

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But parents tell them,

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

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In other words, it's useless.

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There's no need.

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But kids don't mind.

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They have fun in the moment

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and they keep playing in the sand.

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

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They aren't told by their boss

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or anyone, they just do it.

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When you were little, I bet you spent time enjoying the pleasure of primitive art.

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

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many write about an early artistic experience they had as a kid.

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

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

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

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They talk about these kinds of experiences.

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You must have had such a moment.

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In that moment, art makes you happy

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because it's not work.

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

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The French writer Michel Tournier has a famous saying.

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It's a bit mischievous, actually.

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"Work is against human nature. The proof is that it makes us tired."

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Right? Why would work tire us if it's in our nature?

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Playing doesn't tire us.

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We can play all night long.

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

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

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

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

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or play the piano to earn money for the family.

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Of course, there were kids who had to.

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You know this gentleman, right?

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

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart --

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but that was centuries ago, so we can make him an exception.

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

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

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and of course they take piano or ballet lessons,

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but they aren't fun anymore.

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

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

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you'll surely get in trouble with your mom.

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Besides,

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

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you'll increasingly feel pressure --

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people will question your actions and ask you to act properly.

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Here's my story: I was an eighth grader and I entered a drawing contest at school in Gyeongbokgung.

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I was trying my best, and my teacher came around

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and asked me, "What are you doing?"

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"I'm drawing diligently," I said.

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"Why are you using only black?"

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Indeed, I was eagerly coloring the sketchbook in black.

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And I explained,

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

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Then my teacher said,

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

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Or so I wished.

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

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"You'll get it!" he said.

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

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but I was coloring everything in black,

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so he dragged me out of the group.

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There were a lot of girls there as well,

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so I was utterly mortified.

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None of my explanations or excuses were heard,

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and I really got it big time.

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

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"Young-ha may not have a talent for drawing,

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but he has a gift for making up stories," and he would have encouraged me.

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But such a teacher is seldom found.

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

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I was a university student -- and I thought this was really unfair.

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Look what I found. (Laughter)

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Works like this were hung in Basel while I was punished

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and stood in front of the palace with my drawing in my mouth.

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

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Contemporary art, I later discovered, isn't explained by a lame story like mine.

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No crows are brought up.

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Most of the works have no title, Untitled.

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Anyways, contemporary art in the 20th century

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

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essentially the same as I did.

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Of course, my work was very amateur,

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but let's turn to more famous examples.

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This is Picasso's.

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He stuck handlebars into a bike seat and called it "Bull's Head." Sounds convincing, right?

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Next, a urinal was placed on its side and called "Fountain".

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That was Duchamp.

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So filling the gap between explanation and a weird act with stories --

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that's indeed what contemporary art is all about.

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Picasso even made the statement,

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

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

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I wish I knew what Picasso said back then. I could have argued better with my teacher.

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Unfortunately, the little artists within us

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

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They get locked in.

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That's our tragedy.

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So what happens when little artists get locked in, banished or even killed?

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Our artistic desire doesn't go away.

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We want to express, to reveal ourselves,

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but with the artist dead, the artistic desire reveals itself in dark form.

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In karaoke bars, there are always people who sing

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

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miming the guitar riffs.

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Usually they sound awful. Awful indeed.

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Some people turn into rockers like this.

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Or some people dance in clubs.

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People who would have enjoyed telling stories

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end up trolling on the Internet all night long.

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That's how a writing talent reveals itself on the dark side.

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Sometimes we see dads get more excited than their kids

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playing with Legos or putting together plastic robots.

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

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

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but the dad alone builds castles.

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

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But they can often reveal themselves negatively, in the form of jealousy.

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

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

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but never got to.

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They dance, they act -- and the more they do, they are praised.

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So we start to envy them.

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We become dictators with a remote and start to criticize the people on TV.

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

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We easily say these sorts of things.

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We get jealous, not because we're evil,

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but because we have little artists pent up inside us.

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That's what I think.

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What should we do then?

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Yes, that's right.

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Right now, we need to start our own art.

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Right this minute, we can turn off TV,

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log off the Internet,

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get up and start to do something.

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Where I teach students in drama school,

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there's a course called Dramatics.

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

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However, acting majors are not supposed to act.

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They can write the play, for example,

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and the writers may work on stage art.

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Likewise, stage art majors may become actors, and in this way you put on a show.

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Students at first wonder whether they can actually do it,

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

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

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I saw this happen in the army -- many people had fun doing plays.

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I have another experience:

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In my writing class, I give students a special assignment.

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I have students like you in the class -- many who don't major in writing.

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

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

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It can be a simple theme:

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Write about the most unfortunate experience in your childhood.

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There's one condition: You must write like crazy. Like crazy!

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I walk around and encourage them,

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"Come on, come on!" They have to write like crazy for an hour or two.

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They only get to think for the first five minutes.

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The reason I make them write like crazy is because

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

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the artistic devil creeps in.

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This devil will tell you hundreds of reasons

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why you can't write:

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"People will laugh at you. This is not good writing!

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

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It will say a lot of things.

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

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The really good writing I've seen in my class

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was not from the assignments with a long deadline,

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

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in front of me with a pencil.

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The students go into a kind of trance.

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

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And in this moment, the nagging devil disappears.

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So I can say this:

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

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

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Why we cannot be something is not important.

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Most artists became artists because of the one reason.

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

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enemies appear on the outside.

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

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Sometimes they look like our spouses,

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but they are not your parents or spouses.

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They are devils. Devils.

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They came to Earth briefly transformed

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to stop you from being artistic, from becoming artists.

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And they have a magic question.

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

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"I'd like to learn Italian songs," they ask, "Oh, yeah? A play? What for?"

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The magic question is, "What for?"

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But art is not for anything.

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Art is the ultimate goal.

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It saves our souls and makes us live happily.

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

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So in response to such a pragmatic question,

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we need to be bold.

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

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

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

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at least one of which is an artist.

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Once I was in New York and got in a cab. I took the backseat,

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

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

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He said it was his profile. "Then what are you?" I asked. "An actor," he said.

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He was a cabby and an actor. I asked, "What roles do you usually play?"

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He proudly said he played King Lear.

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King Lear.

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"Who is it that can tell me who I am?" -- a great line from King Lear.

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That's the world I dream of.

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Someone is a golfer by day and writer by night.

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Or a cabby and an actor, a banker and a painter,

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secretly or publicly performing their own arts.

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

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

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and a reporter asked her a typical question:

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"What do you have to do to become a great dancer?

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Any advice for aspiring Korean dancers?"

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Now, she was the master. This photo was taken in 1948 and she was already a celebrated artist.

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In 1990, she was asked this question.

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And here's what she answered:

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"Just do it."

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Wow. I was touched.

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Only those three words and she left the airport. That's it.

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So what should we do now?

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

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Just do it!

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Thank you.

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(Applause)