Pool is a non-profit art organization initiated and founded collectively by artists, artists-curators and art critics back in 1999. Reflecting the historical enterprise pool has built so far for over a decade, 2010 pool starts its new chapter of an organizational career with a vision of “integrity amid openness.” pool is honored to inherit the historical legacy of autonomy and criticality voiced by artists themselves throughout the modern and contemporary art of Korea, and is responsible for sharing the legacy with a wider circle of cultural producers worldwide through more various programs and activities. From the last winter, pool and its newly appointed director have prepared for another big leap in the history of pool from a local art organization towards an art institution interconnecting busy flow between trans-local contemporary art scenes of today. Some of the most visible and distinct features of new 2010 pool are the change of its official name and of its physical space, which hopefully tells more open, yet strong manifestation of its institutional identity and agenda slightly in a different method and tone. The new name, “art space pool” indicates pool is still a platform for supporting art experimentations and producing new ideas, but not strictly serving for a registered notion of an alternative itself. 2010 pool rather attempts to diversify the kinds of alternative by developing various ways and modes of encounters, relationships and collaborations among cultural producers and the public. Pool respects its institutional identity as an artists-run organization and fosters the value of reality, action, utterance and institution of critique in contemporary art praxis. And the year 2010 is the time when pool re-launches itself for balanced dedication to its original mission and contemporary trans-regional trajectory of art practices today. The new space, new bilingual website, new international networks, new public programs, new institutional partnership programs and even new staffs of 2010 pool greet every one of you at the onset of 2010 season.