Homing Instinct of Emotional Language
What meaning does an artist live with now? To what degree can the heart and sincerity of those who want to talk about art be protected in a contemporary time filled with selfish capital and cultivation? Huge changes occurred in Korean art circles in 1999. As an alternative to the system that was absent before this year, various attempts have been made for artists over the last ten years, whether commercial, experimental, or supportive. In a current that sheds new light (experiment-research-discussion-marketing) on artists who have passed an era when even the meaning of their existence has faded away, Yoon Jong-seok, who has taken a place in the trend of the booming art marketability (2003 to 2009), thought back on himself for three years, immerging into a skepticism over the problem of living and painting.

Yoon Jong-seok struggles to change his outer clothing into new ones. This exhibition, ‘The Elegant World,’ is a starting point. For his work, he did not consider marketability. Dodging his former works in terms of size and theme, he paid attention to the power structure of daily or social events and directly expressed heaviness and lightness in such works as a series about nation (symbol of power – gun), a series on tables (objets of daily life), and a series on papper towel (light language).

I have more interest in his works, ‘It Wets Softly as If Seeping,’ ‘It Flows This Way Even if You Want to or Not,’ and ‘Sleeping Truth Tells,’ than these series, ones that seem to hint that he wants to change. The characteristic of these three woks reveal certain shapes. And they all contain metaphors, moderation, camouflage in expression, and describe mysterious landscapes making the viewer image their background. Whether Yoon Jong-seok was aware or not, his works show the process where his interest has moved from ‘duplicity and desire’ and ‘camouflage and attribute’ to ‘transience.’

Through this exhibition, he should dream of a new takeoff. He should access the rough language and reveal its nature, a work that he did in the past but failed to complete. To wash away the nature of institutions, he must take off multiple layers. When an artist feels a crisis, he is bound to feel resistance in selling his pieces. It will be a task or hope how Yoon Jong-seok will re-find and express his pure emotion in the future.
- Kwanhoon Lee (Curator, Project Space Sarubia)

Courtesy of Artside Gallery