Paradise Lost
June 3rd - July 14th, 2009
Opening June 3rd, 2009, 6PM
Artist Talk June 27th, 2009, 4PM
A routine of sculpture and blind pieta
Kim Noam
Pieta, a headless greyhound, a carnivore’s skull that looks like saber-toothed tiger, humors and blood that haven’t yet dried up, persistently dropping skin and muscles, rotten body, and the remains of a statue(彫像).
Yi Sangjun’s Solo Exhibition ‘Paradise Lost’, presented by Gallery Sangsangmadang stands on a line of broadening aesthetic realm of sculpture since 1980s. One can say that contemporary art, newly paid attention during late 20th and early 21th centuries has came along with boom of photography and sculpture areas.
Lots of museums and galleries have renovated space. Room became huge-scaled and the ceiling became elevated. Furthermore, an exhibition space extended its realm even into exterior space as one can see in case of Land art. The surrounding public art also producing interfaces with sculpture or environment sculpture.
Genealogy of contemporary sculpture, which had been symbolized by Brancusi and Giacometti after Rodin, faced a radical change during 1960s. Numerous texts and discourses, expressed in a concept of Modernism and Post-Modernism were produced, and they formed thousands of different features of contemporary sculpture, which cannot be described in a single concept. One can specify uniqueness and coordinates, signified in Yi’s works while understanding the history of sculpture as a background.
Genealogy of contemporary sculpture, which had been symbolized by Brancusi and Giacometti after Rodin, faced a radical change during 1960s. Numerous texts and discourses, expressed in a concept of Modernism and Post-Modernism were produced, and they formed thousands of different features of contemporary sculpture, which cannot be described in a single concept. One can specify uniqueness and coordinates, signified in Yi’s works while understanding the history of sculpture as a background.
Yi has started his career with projects adopting styles of industrial design or manufacture design since middle of 1990s. At that time, the art world sunk in the shadows with absence of productive issues or critiques. The considerable number of artists during that time had to only rely on and develop carrier by themselves without expecting any social infrastructures. A very small number of events or issues played a significant role winding up in the area.
Yi focused on formal characteristics of future design, based on Modern design instead of conventional style of Modernism sculpture during that time. That is, he developed a new routine for sculpture through a kind of shock treatment by adopting a language from a heterogeneous area rather than conventional sculpture.
These challenges reflect the young sculptor’s agony longing to uniqueness while continually recognizing globalism and universality in contemporary art. They also lead to reflection of feasible spots of sculpture in Korean society.
Yi focused on formal characteristics of future design, based on Modern design instead of conventional style of Modernism sculpture during that time. That is, he developed a new routine for sculpture through a kind of shock treatment by adopting a language from a heterogeneous area rather than conventional sculpture.
These challenges reflect the young sculptor’s agony longing to uniqueness while continually recognizing globalism and universality in contemporary art. They also lead to reflection of feasible spots of sculpture in Korean society.
His works, presented for this time at Gallery Sangsangmadang present considerably different style of expression from the past style relying to industrial design. Yi’s works include statues(彫像) with organic surface and bodies constituted of organs which grow or get disrupted from the interior. Such a radical change in style represents the core of Yi’s work, which is not a matter of style but of finding sustainability of sculpture.
Contemporary sculpture has consciously or unconsciously changed its concept and forms as a time, object, people and events take different routines. Power that deals with one for change enables sculpture to become itself. Reagent against pressure for change of his surrounding and context as well as Yi’s own alteration of consciousness get his work functioned. It would be more pertinent to say conflict between powers rather than production in terms of describing energy of organs and forms from the interior. We find so-called, ‘construction’ through this course. The process of reading symptoms indicates the exploration of the construction.
We necessarily face with the question, ‘What is sculpture?’ through Yi’s works. At the same time, he also brings up the opposite question, ‘What is not sculpture?’ Question about fundamental sustainability of sculpture and its existence is a sort of question that is hard to answer. We stand in a situation, where only a negative assertion is possible and thus a question is merely valid. A routine where Yi intends is the way surrounded by lots of complicated issues of existential discourses on sculpture.
Contemporary sculpture has consciously or unconsciously changed its concept and forms as a time, object, people and events take different routines. Power that deals with one for change enables sculpture to become itself. Reagent against pressure for change of his surrounding and context as well as Yi’s own alteration of consciousness get his work functioned. It would be more pertinent to say conflict between powers rather than production in terms of describing energy of organs and forms from the interior. We find so-called, ‘construction’ through this course. The process of reading symptoms indicates the exploration of the construction.
We necessarily face with the question, ‘What is sculpture?’ through Yi’s works. At the same time, he also brings up the opposite question, ‘What is not sculpture?’ Question about fundamental sustainability of sculpture and its existence is a sort of question that is hard to answer. We stand in a situation, where only a negative assertion is possible and thus a question is merely valid. A routine where Yi intends is the way surrounded by lots of complicated issues of existential discourses on sculpture.
