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How do collections start?
As with most things in life, some collections may begin out of impulse. Still, things that are being repeated and are continuous tend to have their own unique reasons, generating an order or a system. When a collector collects things, he adds some meaning or value to them beyond the general and conventional value, characteristics, and meaning. As a result, he forms his unique scope of collection and the criteria for classification. The materials that are being collected and classified in such manner may turn into a visual map that can represent a collector’s thinking, assertion, and sensibility.
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Homunculus is a Latin word meaning “little man.” In neuroanatomy, a visual representation of parts of the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for the processing of motor information, will take on the appearance of a homunculus with big head and big hands. The sensory homunculus depicts a big eye that covers the entire body, but this does not necessarily reflect the amount of cerebral cortex devoted to the eyes. It seems that the appearance of a little man with big eyes and giant hands can be likened to artists who observe trivial things attentively with great effort, collect things that mesmerize them, and continuously create things based on their observations.
This exhibition was planned out of personal curiosity. As an artist, when I see artworks by other artists, I am mostly curious about what has made them create art and what has driven them to continue doing it. I find clues to these questions from materials or data from which the creation of an artwork began. An impulse to embody something comes from such original data and materials. The moment is a moment of curiosity and a moment of purely aesthetic impulse. As if a person’s soul and another person’s spirit confront each other, a moment through which the mind of an artist and certain objects face off reflects a moment of potential when object A transforms into a totally different object B as in alchemy.
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Artist KIM Eun Hyung attempts to reinterpret the music, actions, literature, stage art, and architecture - which are elements of a performance - in a modern way while appreciating an opera. He investigates several versions of the performance of one opera and collects various materials such as song books, interviews with stage designers, and drawings. Opera, which is a collective art (Gesamtkunstwerk), becomes richer and varied by using the medium of the artist, who is an appreciator of the performance. His drawing work, which includes the artist’s appreciation in the present time and space, and the content of opera encompass various interpretations of one performance from different perspectives. His sculptural drawings and wall drawing works give the impression of self-expansion as the images organically interconnect.
Artist NOH Sangho is a collector and a painter as well as a storyteller. He collects various photos of different uses from the Internet and draws on carbon paper by placing it on the collected photos. He discovers stories from his collections as if associating things with the stains on the walls or clouds. His carbon paper drawings, reflecting his imagination, take on new images and stories that are totally different from those of the original. His drawings and stories resemble each other as they traverse each other. Several paintings are sometimes connected to form one story. The link connecting several photos from different sources is a mood that can be uniquely felt from his photos, and it is his own imagination that is expressed through the medium of photos.
Artist U Juju often visits the supermarkets and museums of various countries numerous times to work on
. After the exploration and investigations, she creates folk works or artifacts that can be seen from the local museums by using the objects produced in the local area. Outcomes such as armor made of aluminum plates or dress made of paper napkin look like the most common materials and most typical objects, yet they are unusual, unfamiliar things. Based on the fact that the artifacts collected by museums also make things look different depending on the time and place and involve an external point of view, her artwork can be considered a parody about the museums.
Artist LEE Boram collects journalism photos on wars or terrors. The collected photos are classified into the theme of Christianity according to the criteria for similarity in images. When the classified photos are changed to a painting, the color, brightness, and victim-surrounding background of the original photos are removed. Consequently, the victims on the painting are detached from concrete incidents, becoming anonymous “victims” or victims who symbolize wars and tragedy or express them metaphorically. The process resembles a method wherein the image of the victims and the sensibility of viewers are consumed in the environment of today’s mass media.
Artist CHUNG Munkyung collects old clothes. Apparently, the reason she collects old clothes, not new ones, is that what she collects is not clothes as an object, but clothes as a reservoir of memories and recollections. As a result, the objects she makes out of clothes resemble childhood play. The play is not at all pleasant or trivial, however. She intentionally differentiates the inside and outside of clothes in her work. The clothes, which function like skin above the skin or serve as a protective barrier or a boundary between the “self” and the outside world, continuously remind viewers of the issues of individuals vs. groups.
Artist JU Sekyun’s begins from photos of museum porcelain collected from the Internet. Based on the collected photos, the artist makes ceramics and draws patterns on the ceramics with a pencil. Due to errors produced in the process of changing 3-D objects to 2-D images, the artist has to go through the process of “selection” and “concession.” Through such rearrangement, new ceramics that are totally different from the actual ceramics or from those in photos are created. The process symbolizes regulations and customs accumulated within a community as well as the resulting life and anxiety. The discrepancy between a fixated social condition and the actual life resembles the white negative space of porcelain created in the process of rearrangement. Note, however, that the negative space is a positive space that connotes different possibilities.
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The general value of materials is replaced with the meanings provided by collectors, artists, and homunculi, and they are filled with imaginations. Actually, the collections are like a mirror, reflecting the collectors’ interest and fascination.
Written by LEE Boram
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