Viewing the Front Page Artwork of the Newsletter (20) 'Water-4.1' by artist Myungkeun KOH
2017-07-24 l Hit 1149
Viewing the Front Page Artwork of the Newsletter (20)
'Water-4.1' by artist Myungkeun KOH
 Myungkeun KOH, Water 4.1, 2013, Film, Plastic, 50 x 38 x 38cm |
People go to the sea and mountains to avoid the heat these days at the peak of summer. I now introduce 'Water-4.1,' which gives a viewer a cooling feeling, by artist Myungkeun KOH.
Artist Myungkeun KOH shows unrealistic images using photographs, sculptures and architecture at the same time in his work. The artist created a genre called 'Photo Sculpture', which consists of photographed images converted into three-dimensional objects. The front page artwork shows 'water', which has no distinctive shape, in a cubic form. He created stairs into the work to create a fantastic atmosphere.
For artist Myungkeun KOH, 'water' is a long-standing topic. He started his 'water' project in the early 2000s as he started to create work in a series format. The artist explained, "When I first started working on the series, I focused on natural elements such as water, fire, air, and earth. These are elements that the Greek philosophers of the past have called the materials that make up the world. Instead of photographing them directly, I presented them accordingly: the concept of earth is shaped like a pyramid, the theme of air is formed into a diamond, and the idea of water is expressed as a cube."
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What made the artist interested in the elements that are believed to make up the world? We can guess the reason if we go back to the 2000s when the artist started the series. At that time, there were expectations put on the millennium and a vague sense of uncertainty about the future. The artist said, "Back then, I thought that the world we live in may not be what we see with our eyes. It looked as though we were behaving by completely different principles or systems that we did not know, as in the movie The Matrix. In this context, I used to say that the world is an image and vacant, and the series began from there."
Among them, the series on fire, air, and earth have already been completed, but the series on 'water' has continued to the present day and it has transformed itself into various forms. The artist explained that water was well suited to express themes like the origin of ideas and wisdom, and the world being made up of vacant images. He added that water is a metaphor for the origin of wisdom, so it can symbolically reveal hidden principles and formulas,
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His work "Duomo(Firenze)," which was recently shown in the exhibition《Traveling the world without a backpack》(June 5 - July 28, 2017) at LG U+ Art & Healing Gallery, shows the world we live in with images of the cathedral, and added water behind them to reveal the world we cannot perceive.
In response to the question of how he wishes viewers to interpret his work, he told me that it is not appropriate to present viewers with a guide to the work just because he created it. He continued, "I assume my work contains its own DNA for thoughts just like me. I made the work, but I hope the resulting work can be another creature, separate from me. I want my work to have a different voice and communicate with audiences in different ways."
The artist creates all of his work by himself in his workshop. Because he makes his work inside a workshop, there is a limit to the size of the work. Recently, he worked outside of his workshop to create 4-meter tall piece. He changed his production methods by using UV printing on plexiglas since he was working out in the open.
In fact, artist Myungkeun KOH expressed his interest in experimenting with new media through his video interview with the Korean Artist Project in 2012. The artist explained the topic by saying, "In fact, I have considered using videos and moving images for my work, but it seemed like the use of those media made my work superficial. Therefore, I decided to keep the original medium and make changes according to the situation."
Meanwhile, artist Myungkeun KOH is preparing for his solo exhibition at the Tokyo Gallery in November.
2017. 8. 9.ⓒKorean Artist Project
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