Between the Real and the Fabri cate d: A View on Contem po rary Korean Art
Sook-Kyung Lee
hen look ing at the cur rent ar tis tic de vel op ment in their con tem po rar ies else where. Is sues such as rep re sen ta tion, W South Korea, it is all too easy to be se duced by the de - orig i nal ity, au thor ship and iden tity pol i tics have be come as gree of sophis ti cati on and diver sit y in terms of media and sub- im por tant as any is sues par tic u lar to Ko rean so ci ety. On the jects. On the one hand, it is alm ost im possi ble to discern a dis- other hand, there are trends which focus on appro pri at ing the tinctly ‘Ko rean’ art, since over the last few de cades South tra diti onal language of Korean art, in its medium and aesthet - Korean artist s have explore d most of the aesthet ic and discur - ics. Abun dant op por tu ni ties to en coun ter for eign art and cul- sive concerns of modern ist and postmodernist art, just like ture seem to have create d a kind of redis cov ery of what is, or ap pears to be, au then tic to Ko rean sen si bil ity. Fur ther- more, such enqui rie s into the tradi ti on and his tory of their own cul ture have gener ate d among Korean artist s a re - newed in ter est in the def i ni tion of cul tural iden ti ties and their dif fer ences. It is nei ther practi cal nor appro pri ate to discuss the dif fer ent ap proaches in con tem po rary Ko rean art as a sin - gle enti ty. Thinking and speaking of contem porary art in terms of nati on-based boundari es seems al most irrel evant nowa days in any case, as the global iza tion of both com - merce and cul ture has deeply in flu enced artists’ choice of form al and subjec ti ve languages that are no longer cul tur- ally or geo graph ically specific. How ever, there are un de - ni able rup tures in our un der stand ing of con tem po rary art (Fig. 1a) Detail of New Folder – Drag as some thing ho mo ge neous and in dis- tin guish able. Certai n no tions and ideas seem more diffi cult to trans late beyond their own socia l and cultura l boundari es, not only due to their his- tor i cal im pli ca tions, but also be cause of their con tex tual com plex ity. In this arti cle, there fore, I would like to ex plore cer tain as pects of con - tem po rary Ko rean art that are of par - tic u lar in ter est to me, in stead of at - tempt ing to of fer a com pre hen sive sur vey. My per sonal per spec tive will not be able to em brace all the sig nif i- cant cur rents in this par tic u lar field, but rather will suggest vari ous possi - bil i ties of un der stand ing con tem po - rary Korean art. Addi ti onall y, my dis- cus sion will be limited to South Ko rean art, since the po lit i cal di vi sion (Fig. 1) New Folder – Drag By Yongbaek Lee (b. 1966), 2007 of South and North Korea has cre ated HD video and in stal la tion a profound dif ference in art and aes- Variable dimen sions (Photo graph courtesy of Arario Gal lery, Seoul) thet ics be tween the two so ci et ies.
1 (Fig. 2) CNN By Kijong Zin (b. 1981), 2007 Four-channel video instal la tion (real time), CCTV camera, LCD moni tor, mixed media (Fig. 2a) Detail of CNN Variable dimen sions (Photo graph courtesy of Arario Gallery , Seoul)
ne of the most fasci nat ing and confound ing as pects of the ar tifi cial, which is closely linked to the dis ap pear ance of O ad vanced in dus trial so ci et ies is the pro lif er a tion of com - real it y and the creati on of il lusion. The com pli cated proces ses muni ca ti ons via a vast range of media. Since the early 1990s, Lee em ploys are rem inis cent of the way our re la tion ship with several Korean artist s have been working in a vari ety of dif fer- the internet, mobil e phones, TV and other modern technol o - ent tech no log i cal me dia in clud ing video in stal la tion, in ter ac - gies breaks down and confuses the concep tual boundary be- tive and ki netic art, and web-based art. The proces ses of digi tal tween physi cal space and cyberspace. As seen in his re cent media and technol ogy seem to have fasci nate d a num ber of video in stal la tion New Folder – Drag (2007), the disti ncti on emerging artist s in parti cu lar , who grew up in the late 1970s be tween the natu ral and the rep licated is sometim es phys ically and the 1980s, a pe riod of radi cal change in Korea’ s poli ti cal chal lenged in a hum orous yet sym bolic way (Figs 1 and 1a). and econom ic envi ron m ent. In a poli ti cal sense, it was a time Kijong Zin (b. 1981) is another art ist whose works draw at - of shifting power re la tions, with the re gime of the mili - tenti on to the way in which our percep ti on of real it y is manip u - tary-based govern m ent finall y com ing to an end in 1981. How- lated and control led by the mass media. Subvert ing the tech- ever, in one sense this shift caused more uncer tai nty and confu - niques and ef fects of televi sion in parti cu lar , his
2 (Fig. 3) Life Fishing By Kyungwon Moon (b. 1969), 2006 Me dia in stal la tion Vari able di men sions (Photo graph courtesy of the artist)
Kyungwon Moon (b. 1969) em ploys single and sound; within them, lamps flicker on and off in varying multi-channel video and sound insta lla ti ons in which still and rhythms (Figs 4 and 4a). moving im ages of people and scenery are formed, transform ed It is not unusual to find artworks with mechan i cal device s and restruc tured through the use of custom -designe d com puter or moving parts in contem porary art, yet Choe’s machine software (Fig. 3). The object s, figures and scenes of daily life, sculp tures cre ate an ex traor di nary di men sion, with the sup port such as pass ers-by, trees and buildings, are rendered as silhou - of con structed nat u ral-his tory el e ments and the art ist’s some- ettes and out lines – they are of ten sim pli fied and styl ized into im ages which com bine software techniques and proces ses with the appear ance of lyri cal hand drawings. Moon seems to be able to cap ture time and space in these images, but at the same time, to dis lo cate and trans form the tem po ral and spa tial senses. In her seem ingly hand-drawn yet precis ely pro- grammed scenes, the conti nu ous movem ent and rhythm of the ab stract computer lines erase and can cel the or ganic traces of her subject . Although not overly mechan i cal in its appear ance , Moon’s work is bound up with the recent devel op m ents in (Fig. 4a) De tail com puter sci ence and pro gram ming tech nol ogy. What makes of Una Lumino it inter est ing and unique is the contra st be tween sta sis and mo - tion, the or ganic and the mechan i cal , the use of tradi ti onal draw ing tech niques and cut ting-edge tech nol ogy.
hen real ity is per ceived as con structed and re ar ranged, W history and nature can also be viewed as manu fac ture d and as sem bled. U-Ram Choe (b. 1970) has construc ted his char ac ter is tic aes thetic lan guage by de vel op ing ma chine-like sculpture s which evoke the imagi na ti ons of science fic tion. It seems that tech nol ogy and science are not only a practi cal means for the art ist to re al ize in di vid ual pieces, but also a the o - ret ical ba sis for his work as a whole. The large, chan de lier-like struc ture in Una Lumino, for exam ple, is construc ted of trans- lucent plas tic flowers that open and close, produc ing a metal lic
3 (Fig. 4) Una Lumino Sci en tific name: Anmopispl avearium cirripedia uram By U-Ram Choe (b. 1970), 2008 Aluminium, plas tic, servo mo tor, LED and elec tronic de vices Height 520 cm, width 430 cm, depth 430 cm (Pho tog ra phy by Kioku Keizo)
4 (Fig. 5) Mus Animatus & Felis Catus Animatus By Hyungkoo Lee (b. 1969), 2006-07 Resin, aluminium sticks, stain less- steel wire, springs and oil paint Mus Animatus: height 15 cm Felis Catus Animatus: height 88 cm (Photo graph courtesy of Arario Gallery , Seoul)
what lit er ary imag i na tion. Be gin ning with Ul tima Mudfox: Anmoropral Delphinus delphis Uram, made in 2002, the art ist concei ved a serie s of me- chan i cal or gan isms that orig i nate and evolve in de- pend ently of hu man in ter ven tion, us ing palaeont- ological sys tems of clas si fi ca tion. His ma chine sculpture s are shown with pseudo-scien ti fic infor - mati on such as place of ori gin, habi tat , host and regi - men, and some times re sem ble ex hib its dis played in nat u ral his tory mu se ums. With the ad di tion of sci en- tific names in Latin and hy po thet ical state ments as to their gene sis , these works becom e the palaeon tol ogy of the future as well as the para dox i cal proof of our sci en tific un der stand ing, which is ac tu ally based on such hy poth e ses and ar bi trary spec u la tion. The art - ist’s concept of lifeli ke machine s em ploys evolu ti on - ary terms like ‘muta ti on’ and ‘the survival of the fit - test’, and demon strates his be lief that tech ni cal advance is an exten sion of natu ral evolution.
(Fig. 6) City on a Bomb shell By Jin Ham (b. 1978), 2006 Mixed media on bombshell Heigh 37 cm, length 122 cm, width 38 cm (Pho to graph cour tesy of PKM Gal lery, Seoul)
5 (Fig. 7) Be witched #1 Hyungkoo Lee’s (b. 1969) work is also based on a pseudo- By Yeondoo Jung (b. 1969), Se oul, 2001 sci en tific re con struc tion of imag ined as well as nat u ral spe - C-print photo graph dip tych, one of an edi tion of five cies, and is consci ously am bigu ous in disclos ing its fabri cat ed Variable dimen sions (Photo graph courtesy of Tina Kim Gal lery, na ture. Homo Animatus, a se ries of works be gun in 2002, ap - New York and Kukje Gal lery, Seoul) pears in the first in stance to con sist of skel e tal re mains of pre - his toric crea tures. Of ten pre sented in a dra mati cally dark set - the viewer re alizes this, the pains tak ingly re con structed de - ting with spotli ghts, Lee’s sculpture s again re sem ble the tails heighten the sense of decep ti on and dubi ety . The com bi- display s in natu ral history or sci ence muse um s. On closer in - na tion of pop u lar cul ture, lab o ra tory-based sci ence and spec tion, however , it gradu all y becom es evi dent that these are mythic alchemy seems to sit comfor tably in Lee’s ar tistic prac - not the skele tons of ancie nt spe cies, but of imagi nary crea tures tice, which address es a vari ety of issues concern ing the body and cre ations with no real ori gin, such as the cartoon charac - and its dis tor tion and ide al iza tion. ters Road Runner , Bugs Bunny and Tom & Jerry (Fig. 5). Once Jin Ham’s (b. 1978) tiny sculpture s are exem plary in show- ing a sen si bil ity that val ues the sol itary and rel a tively iso lated condi ti on of modern exis tenc e. Using lumps of clay, discarde d pills, plas tic waste and other worth less mate rial, Ham makes minia ture beings that oc cupy cracks, holes and other insig nif i - cant places in a given dom ain. Beyond their aston ish ing ap- pear ance, these be ings pur pose fully con struct nar ra tives that are bound up with the art ist’s private universe . Playful and at times sa tir i cal, as in City on a Bombshel l (2006), the imagi nary world these beings build and inhabit is paral lel and analo gous to the outer world (Figs 6 and 6a). The dif feren ti ati on betwee n these two worlds is as ar bi trary as their au then tic ity.
he lack or insuf ficie ncy of authen ti cit y in modern life cre- Tates a need to make al ter na tive re ali ties where the bound - aries be tween ac tu ality and fan tasy can not in hibit the ex is- (Fig. 6a) Detail of City on a Bombshell tence of multi ple real i ti es. Yeondoo Jung’s (b. 1969)
6 photo graphs of imagi nary scenes are staged, narra ti ve im ages petrol stati on in Se oul who dreams of becom ing a Form ula which merge real and fabri cat ed envi ron m ents and object s. One rac ing driver (Fig. 7); a middle- aged man in Liver pool Jung ab stains from dig i tal pro cess ing and im age ma nip u la tion, who wishes to play the spoons with the Phil harm onic Orches - opt ing for more tra di tional the at ri cal and cin e matic tech niques tra; and a fashion model who wants to have a fam ily, with three to construc t his scenes. He often builds elabo rat e sets us ing chil dren and two dogs. Having inter viewed his subject s, Jung props, painted or photo graphed backdrops and studio light ing, care fully re con structs the scenes of their hopes and ideals for which he combines with ac tual land scapes and char acters. Lo - the future , but for now the ac com plished dreams rem ain in the ca tion (2005-present) is a serie s of vibrant C-print photo - realm of fan tasy, just like his imagi nary land scape scenes. graphs of construc ted landsca pes that has the appear ance of Do Ho Suh’s (b. 1962) sculptura l and archi tec tural insta l- stills from seem ingly fa miliar yet imag inar y mov ies; the fu - lati ons dem onstra te the com plex balance betwee n the personal sion of real lo cations and actors with fab ri cated scen ery cre - and the socia l. Suh’s works are often based on his own expe ri - ates a fan tastic, hal lu cina tory at mo sphere. It seems that the art- ence as a Korean-born art ist living and working in the US, ist seeks to re define the conven ti ons and languages of both where he came to questi on Korean ways of thinking and landsca pe and portra it photog ra phy , bringing to the genres the attitudes. For in stance, a large-scale tex tile piece, Se oul Home/ more vi sion ary au ton omy of paint ing and even lit er a ture. L.A. Home (1999), in tro duces spe cific cul tural ref er ences into Jung’s inter est in giving form to hidden fanta sie s and de - his ar chi tec tural works, show ing a se ries of in te ri ors ren dered sires can also be noted in his project Be witched (2001-pres- in sea-green silk and ny lon. One half of the work is an exact ent). In this work, Jung recre ate s the dreams of people he has rep lica of his family home, which is typ ical of tra di tional Ko - encoun ter ed around the world. Each project is com prised of a rean resi dence s, and the other half a faithful copy of his apart- pair of portra its of a single subject , one an im age of the person ment in the US. By ren der ing the ac tual ar chi tecture in the in his or her current real it y, the other in his or her ideal identi ty more ephem eral ma te rial of trans lu cent tex tile, how ever, Suh and surround ings. Subject s include a young boy working at a transform s the corpo re al it y of the spaces into somethi ng nos-
(Fig. 8) Uni-Form/s, Self-Portrait/s: My 39 Years By Do Ho Suh (b. 1962), 2006 Fab ric, fibre glass resin, stain less steel and cast ers, one of an edi tion of three Height 169 cm, length 254 cm, width 56 cm (Pho to graph cour tesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gal lery, New York)
7 (Fig. 9) The White House By Joonho Jeon (b. 1969), 2005 Com puter an i ma tion (Pho to graph cour tesy of Arario Gal lery, Seoul)
tal gic and psy cho log i cal. The themes of cul tural dis place ment able in these ‘Uni-Form/s’, the identi ty of a person is veiled and identi ty have also been centra l in his subse quent works. be neath stan dard ized ar che types. What be comes prob lem atic, The tra di tional cel e bra tion of the collec tive rather than the how ever, is the art ist’s sub se quent re al iza tion that the col lec - indi vid ual in Korean culture has influ ence d some of Suh’s tive identi ty is not univer sal or nat ural , but construc ted and works, as in Uni-Form/s, Self-Por trait/s: My 39 Years (2006) ide al ized. (Fig. 8). This is an as sem blage of the art ist’s uniform s from The appro pri a ti on of real storie s and the ordi nary events nursery to high school and com pulsory mil itar y service , sym - and object s of daily life is also one of the main subject s of bol iz ing the col lec tive na ture of Ko rean so ci ety. In dis tin guish- Joonho Jeon’s (b. 1969) work (Fig. 9). Using his own, disti nct
(Fig. 10) Win ter By Kyung Jeon (b. 1975), 2006 Gouache, graphite and water col our on rice pa per on canvas Height 90 cm, width 135 cm (Pho to graph cour tesy of Tina Kim Gallery , New York and Kukje Gal lery, Se oul)
8 perspec tive, which is at once poli ti cal ly charged and highly modern life and cul ture (Fig. 11). A wide range of events and personal , Jeon questi ons the hege m onic struc tures of Korean mem orie s informs her works: inci dents such as the Picton soci ety and poli ti cs. Through his refer ence s to object s and Farm murder case, the Vir ginia Tech shooting and the Exxon icons such as US-dol lar bills, North Korean banknotes , an Valdez Oil spill inspire her own inter preta ti ons, and influ ence s Ameri can-foot ball player, the Statue of Libert y, and the logos include David Lynch’s TV seria l Twin Peaks, as well as Latin of Nike and Mc Don ald’s, the art ist ex presses a criti cal anal ysis Amer i can sha man ism. How ever, the de tails are re-imag ined, of the media, capi tal ism, and the poli ti cal and econom ic dom i- re struc tured within the artist’ s own imag ined space. Real oc - nance of the US. He encour ages the audi ence to ques tion their cur rences and scen ery are re ar ranged and blended with the art - view of re al ity, re veal ing its dis tor tion by the mass media and ist’s own expe ri ence s and defi ni ti ons to form dream-like nar- decons truc ting the myths and power struc tures of contem po - rati ves, pre sented in a vari ety of media includ ing painted rary so ci ety. scrolls and screens, insta lla ti ons and myster y novels . However , it is also true that Jeon’s work goes beyond the Seung-ho Yoo (b. 1973) produces intri cate and hum orous realm of the cri tique of econom ic and cultura l hege m ony, with works in pen-and-ink on paper that blur the boundari es be - his re cent em phasis on power rela ti ons in the dom ain of the in - tween word and im age, and play with language, text and the divid ual and the personal . For insta nce, Alpram – the Absolute tra di tions of East ern land scape paint ing and cal lig ra phy. Yoo Com mand (2008) is based on the of ficia l statue of the founder rec re ates tra di tional land scape paint ings, spe cif i cally the type and form er leader of North Korea, Kim Il-sung (1912-94), of monu m ental work in ink on paper from China’s Northern which is an unpar al lel ed icon within monu m ental and propa - ganda sculpture . While the work is repre sen ta ti ve of the art - ist’s cri tique of overwhelm ing power and socia l ficti on, it also re fers to somewhat more ab stract and broader re sistance through the consci ous link with Alpram, a medi ca ti on for panic dis or der. Rec og niz ing that psy cho log i cal states are not en tirely sep arate from phys ical and mate rial ones but are sometim es sim ply re sponses to chemi cal pro cesses, Jeon leads us to the reve la ti on of the functi ons and forms of power that perm eate into the most pri vate and subjec ti ve levels of life.
he cre ation of per sonal my thol o gies and al le gor i cal nar ra- Ttives can also be seen in the work of artist s who com bine them with the form al language of tradi ti onal Korean paint ing. Kyung Jeon (b. 1975) is one of the art ists who adopt the genre of drawing as an ef fecti ve technique to repre sent com plex and fan tas ti cal sto ries. Us ing the tra di tional sup port of Ko rean mulberry or rice paper mounted on canvas, she produces rather childishl y rendered im ages of small figures and their sur- roundings. As seen in Figure 10 and in her more recent work, a story (2008), com prised of thirtee n large-scale paint ings, the figures and storie s depict ed are often based on the art ist’s own imag i na tion and ex pe ri ence. How ever, the nar ra tives are gen - er ally frag mented rather than co her ent, in di cat ing in flu ences from the vi sions of such artist s as Henry Darger (1892-1973) and Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516). In a sim ilar manner , the art of Yoonyoung Park (b. 1968) ref er ences the tech niques and mo tifs of tra di tional East ern cal - ligra phy and landsca pe paintings, but reconfigures these ele - ments and conven ti ons and com bines them with aspect s of
(Fig. 11) Logo Land scapes By Yoonyoung Park (b. 1968), 2005 Chinese ink and colour on rice paper Each: height 210 cm, width 39 cm (Photo graph courtesy of Arario Gallery , Seoul)
9 Song dynast y (960-1279), which de picts pic turesque scenes of sonal and private. There is a shared ar tis tic sen si bil ity that is moun tains, trees and wa ter. Nev er the less, on closer in spec tion dis tant from grand nar ra tives, di rect pol i tics and spec ta cles, we see that the images are made up of tiny char acters in fo cus ing in stead on per sonal myths, sub jec tive nar ra tives and Hangul, the of fi cial Ko rean script. The deli cate crafts man ship, the aes thet ics of the frag ments of daily life. These art ists com- schol arly air and el egance of the orig inals are here trans formed mem o rate the hum ble and seem ingly in sig nif i cant mo ments of into somethi ng play ful and comic. Yoo’s art is at once poeti c socia l and personal history , and em phasiz e an out look that is at and quirky, express ing both a poignant nos tal gia and a childish once med i ta tive and pri vate, and so cially en gag ing. sense of hum our. Within the cur rent ar tis tic de vel op ments in Ko rea, there is Sook-Kyung Lee is Exhi bi tions & Dis plays Cura tor at Tate Liver pool. a tendency to re flect the rapidl y shifting nature of socia l and Art ist websites poli ti cal life and culture in a contem porary world of mass pro - duc tion, mass con sum er ism and me dia sat u ra tion. Al though U-Ram Choe (http://www.uram.net/) not con sciously col lec tive in their ac tiv i ties, to day’s art ists ap - pear to share a par ticu lar view, see ing re ality as con structed Hyungkoo Lee (http://www.hyungkoolee.net/) and imagined rather than authen ti c and natu ral . However , the Yeondoo Jung (http://www.yeondoojung.com/) ar tis tic re sponse to the view of re al ity as fab ri cated is not lim- ited to the socia l and poli ti cal spheres, but extends to the per- Kyung Jeon (http://www.kyung.com/)
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