Henri-François Debailleux I Art Critic
Wood, earth, water, light, stone, plants, neons – looking at the materials that Shim Moon-Seup has worked with since the early 1970s, one is struck by the thought that he could easily have been one of the Arte Povera artists. That he did not join this movement which originated in Turin, Italy, was partly a matter of geography, but also because, at a deeper level, his artistic approach is in fact different from theirs. Even so, like its members Giuseppe Penone, Mario Merz, Giovanni Anselmo and Pier Paolo Calzolari, Shim Moon-Seup has always attached great importance to his choice of materials and, more precisely, to the use of “poor” or “modest” materials, to quote two adjectives used frequently in descriptions of his work. Likewise, he has always been highly attentive to the space in which his works are to be inscribed.
As a child, Shim Moon-Seup grew up close to nature, and he has remained close to it ever since. It is therefore perfectly logical that he should be interested in simple, elementary materials. The nature of matter brings him close to the matter of nature. And if he loves the essential, primitive (as in, close to the origins) aspect of these materials, it is above all for the power and density that emanate from the purity of water or the rough appearance of hewn wood. But even more than the specific character and intrinsic power of such and such an element, what Shim Moon-Seup seeks is the encounter and dialogue created by juxtaposing two or three of them together. For his work is organised essentially around the relations of tension and balance created by bringing together opposites such as hard and soft, straight lines and curves, verticals and horizontals, natural (a stone) and industrial (an iron sheet), etc.
These plays of contrast and this search for harmony are also evident in the way the works are presented. For Shim Moon-Seup is concerned not only with the visual aspect of the sculpture but also with that of what is around it. The form of each work, its presence, and even its carefully thought-out and chosen positioning in a place, are indeed conceived in order to reveal the context into which it is fitted, to make us look carefully at the space around it and the way it dialogues with its environment. And what is true for interior spaces is even more so in outdoor spaces. Shim Moon-Seup’s recent exhibition in the gardens of the Palais Royal, Paris (spring 2007), illustrated this to striking effect. Titled “Towards an Island,” it invited viewers to tack like boats in this setting little known for its maritime dimension, and to move around in new ways so as to discover the dozen works he had placed in the trees, along the paths, on the lawns or in the pools. Some of these moved in the wind, like the nets, or flying ships, that he positioned up in the branches, or the transparent cylindrical tubes that leaned towards the lawn in the slightest breath of wind. Others used water to create reflections or to act as fountains. Still others, in wood and steel, solidly anchored to the ground, rose up in fine rows. Air, water, earth – the elements were brought into play and visitors had to look up, bend, and find perspectives in order to make the initiatory and poetic journey on which they were invited, and that, for a while, made us see this garden in a new way.
This was, then, a perfect example of the way Shim Moon-Seup reveals surrounding nature (whether artificial or not), and places his works in relation to the different elements with which they are intermingled ; of the way he fits them into a context. The principle is not to impose the work but to compose with the site, and often in an occasional, ephemeral way. For if the artist’s works play with space, then they also play with time and its meteorological variations (rain, sun, wind). Time and space as the very principles of life.
Whether they shout it out or whisper it low, all Shim Moon-Seup’s works are involved with the concept of energy : human energy, natural energy, and the energy in man’s existential relation to nature. Hence this constant search for movement, these frequent evocations of flowing water, the work on rhythms, cycles and transience. Far from focusing on a fixed evocation of nature, Shim Moon-Seup chooses to directly reveal the forces that breathe life into reality, the energy fields that generate all movement : in other words, he chooses to make each work an example and a metaphor of life’s fragile equilibrium.
Translation by Charles Penwarden
