1999 Metaphor of Dismantlement and Nonresistance 해체와 무저항의 메타포

Metaphor of Dismantlement and Nonresistance

해체와 무저항의 메타포

Sponsored by: Internet Gallery of Contemporary Art (www.postgallery.co.kr)

Display Period: March 1st – May 15th, 1999

Artists: Lee, Seel-ku, Park Chul-ho

Directed by: Kim, Ok-real

Artists :

Lee Seel-ku – Shattered Life, Overlapping self-scrutiny

Park Chul-ho – Gesture of resistance and metaphor of nonresistance

 ::Lee Seel-ku ; Fragmented Life, the Twofold Gaze at the Self

The works of Lee Seel-ku realize the reality of life through disorganization of trees or plants, parts of nature. His pictures suggest the significance of life by means of the metaphor of fragmentation and disorganization. At the first sight, the plastic qualities of his works seems to be commonplace symbolic signs, attained by disorganizing common images and escaping from self. However, it is noteworthy that the fragments of plants, represented in abstract image, suggest the way of gaze at twofold self.

 "Untitled-1" and "Untitled-2" using the image of a pond or a swampy land, grasp the dual significance of the self: the one, the 'intrinsic power' of self, the recognition of the self as the subject of life, the other, the 'insecurity of living being', the recognition of undifferentiated space. "Untitled-3" makes the constant repetition of life and death into fragments of nature, a fossils. It is paradox that through this fossilization, our limited life on earth secures the eternity.

 "Untitled-4" embodies the efforts to seize the reality of life in the languages of gesture. The artist attempts to seize the life in the embodiment of traces and actions. As a part of this attempt, in "Untitled-5" and "Untitled-6" the variant images of plants are floating in the air up and down . By conquering the limitation of space, the life in the water and the life in the air become one, realize the unity of life.

 In "Untitled-7", the artist raises the gaze at the life to the selfless consciousness of life. The space of coexistence becomes the selfless and objectless space when the gaze at the self becomes one with the inner voice. In "Untitled-8"; and "Untitled-9", through the realization of inner unity, the space of harmony and formation suggests the possibility to find a new meaning of reality and existence.

 The works of Lee Seel-gu intend to seize the duality of life through the disorganization of shapes. At the same time, his plastic languages, the disorganization of plant shapes symbolized in abstract form, inner expression of the space composition act as the metaphor of disorganization in order to illuminate the problem of life.

::Park Chul-ho ; The Gestures of Resistance and the metaphor of Non-resistance

The works of Park Chel-ho are powerful. His works have the power of silent resistance. He says "I don't take art as an unfolding of historical phenomena but as a process of evolution. And the changes of nature is the most important source out of which the life of art evolves." From his remarks, we can fine a clue to understand his works. He efforts to find the fundamental essence of life in ever changing and ever becoming nature at many removes from the reasoning for market of capitalism and the reproduction of images. He frequents the Upo swamp to seize the reality of life through the experience of earth, to escape the abstract ideas. In this exhibition, his new series of works bring up the problems about the identity of life.

 In "work-1", he seizes the serious crisis of Life. The composition of picture with charcoal suggests the serious crisis of life. The shape of bird has dual meanings; the one, the warning against the crisis of human life and the other, the resistance to the disruption of nature. "work-2" and "work-3" show that the crisis of bird's life is directly linked to the crisis of our lives. In "work-2", the scratching technique with knife, which expresses the suffering of bird, achieves the expression of subtle inner voice.

 "work-4", expressed by the technique of dry point, gives the impression of coldness and dryness. The coldness and dryness figure the silent resistance, as more powerful resistance than any other resistance. In this work the silent warning against the crisis of environmental pollution is expressed in the metaphor of non- resistance. Moreover, the fixing shape of a falling bird figures the silent and still resistance, the resistance through non-resistance. Compared with the restrain of silent resistance in "work - 4", the flexible line and movement of "work-5" and "work-6" strengthen the variety and vitality of works.

 "work-7" and "work-8" suggests the crisis of the ecosystem using the lithographic technique. The birds that try flying for food on the dirty river and black earth visually outcry their pains. The artist, Park Cheul-ho, by the means of the metaphor of non-resistance, communicates the message that we, human being, can not survive on the earth where the birds can not survive.

 Finally, "work-9" and "work-10" in which the artist attempts the plastic variations, lay great emphasis on the dynamic plasticity and ideological figures. Especially, "work-9" in which the crossing of black plane and white plane figures the complex duality of despair and hope, extends the significance of self-discovery to the insight of the life crisis and the perception of life.

March 1st, 1999

Okreal Kim(Independent Curator)