Kwak’s solo exhibition Hollow Skin at the OCI Museum of Art includes drawing, painting, neon works and installations. Among the 35 pieces presented in the exhibition, the “Macho” drawing of a muscular man displayed at the entrance of the gallery is succeeded by a big figure installation of another “macho,” which marks the highlight of the exhibition. Following is his typical black and white monochrome of a female nude Sexy Girl (2007), which shows off its sex appeal in a pornographic pose. In the paintings and LED pieces on the second floor, the banal gestures and characteristic poses of figures are humorously expressed through their simplified silhouettes and physical transformation of the surface.
The large installation piece displayed in the center of the exhibition, Gisant of Hongdongji (2014), is the artist’s new attempt. Kwak had played a pioneering role in the print art scene in Korea as he had combined his highly skilled painting techniques to his printmaking techniques that he studied in France. Therefore, his attempt to extend his art to three-dimensional works reflect young and experimental spirit of the artist who has largely overleapt the middle-grade. Due to this extension to three dimensional installation works, it seems the “shadow artist,” as he used to be called, limit the identity of the artist. However, interestingly enough, his subjects and interests have remained coherent since his early years. Isn’t the “surface” of a painting identical to the “hollow skin” of a sculpture? You are missing His important artistic intention is misunderstood if one sees his flexible language of expression crossing over various media as simply expressing the artist’s free-minded personality. His highly sophisticated sense of visualizing the essence of heavy lumps by capturing their surfaces is equally applied to both his painting and sculpture. However, Kwak’s vision of observing his objects has stayed unchanged. His vision is set to the eye that looks down from the top of the mountain with a certain distance.
The artist’s insightful and sympathetic vision is equally reflected on his “Macho” installation with its contriving pose. Ostentation of futile and ephemeral youthfulness is observed in the macho’s trials of erecting his own masculinity. This obsession over phallic competence could be stretched to human desire and ostentation of all kinds of power including money and social rank. The essence of Kwak’s art lays on extracting such universal ideas. In other words, each narrative generated from a pose or situations of his characters doesn’t take a crucial part. A universal idea derived from each individuality is essential in his work. As such in-depth thoughts about life are unfolded into thin and sharp surfaces and shells, his work should not be considered simply as light. When the artist says “I prefer lightness instead of serious reaction or thick matiere in terms of treating a subject,” it is obvious that there are more layers in his “lightness.” His way of lessening weight and pretending to be less serious is charming. Therefore, it is unnecessary to add pedantic descriptions to Kwak’s images that capture our complicated life with humor and wit.
However, Kwak’s vision that captures all kinds of human life stories is not judgemental. That is probably why he says, “every subject taken in my work is a mirror reflecting our evanescent life.” In his work, differences between genders and colors of the figures don’t matter much. Such elements become part of the universal aesthetics created by silhouettes of the flat image. Therefore, it seems it is meaningless to make a classification of the figures. However, his critical vision is not cynical. His sympathy for people’s pathetic and striving lives naturally turns into a form of humor. His work makes his audiences laugh. It is generally said that a good comedy is harder than tragedy. The reversal humor of his work reveals his breath of mind.
In his implicated monotone work, forms and contents are not separated just like the shadow is not detached from the subject. Shadow, his frequent material, doesn’t contrast from existence. Since real and fiction are inseparable, what we see as real through his work is fiction. Therefore, inversely, it is logical that his “Hollow Skin” painting is not hollow. There is nothing left to do except laughing about our life full of fugacious desire. If so, is fiction a given reality?
Therefore, one should consider Kwak’s shadow from a different angle. In western culture, shadow is considered as an index to support the identity of photography. Shadow is an evidence of existence as well as a trace that visualizes the process of being. However, the essence of western dichotomy dividing presence from absence seems disappearing in the artist’s vision. Therefore, Kwak sees shadow instead of none-fiction, silhouette instead of incompletion, and a filled-up hollow skin instead of hollowness. In Kwak’s work, shadow, silhouette, and hollow skin all implicate existence and invisible truth beyond visibility. For instance, in the artist’s portraits which frequently appear in his works, the presence of the artist is clearly expressed through the silhouette of his parted blowzy hair as if the ‘hollow skin’ could contain his existence well enough.
- Young Paik Chun (professor at Fine art department of Hongik university) /
translated by Soyoung Chung
*image (left)
Practice of Falling down, 2013
neon, lumber installed on plywood, variable dimensions
courtesy of the artist
