Kwon Dae Hun¡¯s Inclusive Theory of Formative Art: Save the Forms (ÏßÀ)!
Shim Sang Yong (Director, Seoul National University Museum of Arts)
Lost in the Forest
¡®Still in the Forest¡¯ was the theme of Kwon Dae Hun¡¯s solo exhibition in 2020. It originated from his experience of having been lost in the forest once. In the very forest, he recalls that he experienced an unforgettable optical illusion. Suddenly, transformations occurred to forms, and some trees assumed the form of a human. This was when the artist realized that visual perception is intricately synchronized to one¡¯s psychological state. Some moments or events exude such a strong impression that they are branded on our hearts and souls. Visual experience does not deviate too far from this £¿ it is carved in our heart and soul that it plays a pivotal role in forming an aesthetic that sustains one¡¯s life.
Kwon Dae Hun locates images from various sources in the artificial situation of light. There, a new context emerges. His drawing wears a body formed by exceptional molding. We find a dual connection between the two lights £¿ one as an image that already became part of the sculpture on top of the molded body and another as an actual light from the lighting in the space. It is a joyful reinstation of all things analog, which has been replaced or is in the process of being replaced in today¡¯s digitalized world. Thoughts originate not from big data but from the artist¡¯s experience and memory, and become art through the process of traditional molding or painting that produces sweat and labor.
On the Act of Seeing
Let me be very clear here. ¡®Eye¡¯ as a biological apparatus exists only as the receptor of light or as its medium. It is not different from the camera lens. But with this definition, we are denied even the very rudimentary understanding of the act of ¡®seeing¡¯. Adjusting the density of light and forming an image on the surface of the eye is only the beginning of the entire act of seeing. To see borders both the mind and the soul. Even the origin of existence and the transcendental understanding of nature and objects permeate the act. In this sense, the act of ¡®seeing¡¯ is fundamentally different in its essence from that of non-being or animals.
Such existential and three-dimensional characteristics of visual perception need not be understood as evidence of the impressionist underestimation of the interpretation of light. Quite the contrary. For instance, Monet illuminated how light emphasizes harmony with nature, how objects are not autonomous beings, and how light instantaneously evokes the emotion of joy. Kwon Dae Hun seems to enjoy the visual light of impressionist than the light of Rembrandt for the time being. He delightfully appreciates the interplay of visual perceptions between objects and light. Therefore, we need not exhaust ourselves by excessively annotating the light that appears in this world. Let us enjoy the game between light and object. When light illuminates the top left of the figure, the first optical illusion of the image and the real is created, followed by the second illusion in the shadow at the bottom right. This dual optical illusion do not exclude each other £¿ they coexist as the byproduct of the play between reality and image.
Establishing the Foundation of Inclusive Sculpture
Kwon Dae Hun traverses the boundaries between memory and the present, light and shadow, reality and the virtual, and sculpture and painting. Memory becomes ¡®embodied¡¯ at his hands. On top of the embodied memories occurs the embodiment of light. This dual embodiment is the formative grammar that controls and produces the visual sentimentality of this world. From this grammar, the narrative of plurality stretches and rises.
This is the dynamic of beauty, contrasted to the discourses of ¡®post-¡¯ or ¡®deconstruction¡¯ found in the postmodernist critical theories. This world includes and plays with boundaries. The balancing between memory and the present, and reality and image; painting and sculpture, drawing and molding become each others¡¯ guardians. Sculpture embraces painting, and painting contributes to the sculpture¡¯s expansion. It is a so-called win-win situation. Genre antagonism that fixates on the two-dimension or three-dimension is only a ridiculous invention of modernism. Why would anyone inherit that? Kwon Dae Hun is not confined to or obsessed with just a single thing of object and light, or reality and image. There is no need to underline the frivolity of material to emphasize the meaning of light. One needs not to choose between the light of James Turrel, Claude Monet, or Dan Flavin¡¯s minimal light. Moreover, there is no use validating which one is true and which one is false; that is the essence of this inclusive world.
Let us not forget the harmful legacy of the idea that we must choose between Marcel Duchamp and conceptual aesthetics. We should not let the mistake recur, the mistake that once seemed quite valid, to close our eyes to get to reality and to send sweat and labor to the guillotine. The close-mindedness of the abstract aesthetics that relied on the ancient philosophy of the West to condemn the figurative as ugly falsehood, or of the opposite side, should be understood in the same context. And what was the consequence? We all know that the consequence was abysmal. Michelangelo created the David from stone, but, today, we find the LA museums presenting us with a rock amounting to 340 tons or a statue of a female police squatting and defecating. Have all the discourses of ¡®post-¡® and ¡®deconstruction¡® sharpen our perception? I must say it was quite the contrary.
As soon as we ¡®deconstructed¡¯ the boundaries, aesthetic relativism became more prevalent. Anti-boundary led to anti-standard, anti-aesthetic, and anti-art until we lost all vitality of image. Boundary is the source of meaning. It is not the vocation of art to hammer the meaning but to deconstruct and reconstruct it. Is the boundary a problem? No, it is the wrongly calibrated boundary the problem. Eye and concept, and sculpture and painting are completed by contemplating their unique individuality and relating them rather than denying one of the binaries. Art¡¯s unchanging fate is to explore and experiment novelty, but let us not misunderstand any further. Denial, destruction, and deconstruction do not lead to the road of novelty but to mere retreat. By enriching the meaning, we still make possible novelty. This should be the future of art.
Visual art has been the pathway that visually and perceptively offers the highest standard of excellence absent in this world. Inspiration, light traveling from afar, sublimity, and grace £¿ vector, the power to lead us to the higher order of thoughts incomparable to personal opinions. Such was the essence of visual art. Now, however, we have been swept by the flood of ¡®post-¡¯ and ¡®deconstruction¡¯, leaving visual art as a chaotic marketplace of destroying the link of signification between the signified and the signifier, semiotically mixing reality with chaotic signs, or castrating images of its roots. It has become a purveyor of vacuity, lack of opinion, and arbitrary ugliness.
Kwon Dae Hun¡¯s sculpture is a declaration of rethinking sculpture. By concurrently including tradition and non-tradition of sculpture, and by intertwining sculpture and non-sculpture as one, he saves sculpture. His sculpture is an effort to not perceive any of the binaries of reality and image, and truth and falsehood as subject to denial or deconstruction. It is a sculpture of forfeiting antagonism against all things non-sculptural. To appropriate falsehood as a mechanism to expand the truth, to save the image from its slough £¿ in other words, to cure the poison of modernism and take a step closer to formativeness. Such is the direction and meaning of the artistic endeavors of Kwon Dae Hun.
(1)Bachelard, Gaston. The Right to Dream. Translated by Lee Garim. Seoul: Youlhwadang, 1983, pp. 74-75
Kwon Dae Hun
EDUCATION
2004 ¿µ±¹ ·±´ø´ë ½½·¹ÀÌµå ¹Ì¼úÇб³ MFA Á¹¾÷
1999 ¼¿ï´ëÇб³ ´ëÇпø Á¶¼ÒÀü°ø Á¹¾÷
1996 ¼¿ï´ëÇб³ ¹Ì¼ú´ëÇÐ Á¶¼Ò°ú Á¹¾÷
1990 ¼¿ï¿¹¼ú°íµîÇб³ Á¹¾÷
AWARD
2011 ´õ Àè °ñµåÈú Á¶°¢»ó ¼ö»ó / ¿µ±¹ ¿Õ¸³¹Ì¼ú¿ø (The Jack Goldhill Award for sculpture, Royal Academy of arts summer Exhibition 2011)
2005 ¿µ±¹ ¿Õ¸³ Á¶°¢°¡ ÇùȸÀü (RBS Bursary Award)
2001, 2000 Áß¾Ó ¹Ì¼ú´ëÀü
EXHIBITION
Solo Exhibition
2021 öÁ¶¸Á, ÆòÈ°¡ µÇ´Ù, ¼ºÀ̳ĽÿÀ ¼º´ç, ·Î¸¶
2020 Still in the Forest, ¾Æ¶ã¸®¿¡ ¾ÆÅ°, ¼¿ï
2019 Expo Chicago/ Exposure/, ¹Ì±¹
2018 Objemage, ±Ý»ê°¶·¯¸®, ¼¿ï
½£¿¡¼ ±æÀ» ÀÒ´Ù, ¾ÆÆ®¼¾ÅÍ ´ë´ã, ´ã¾ç
2017 Objemage, KIAF 2017 Solo Project(ºÎ½ºÀü), ¼¿ï
Chalna-enlightenment, Gallery by the Harbour, Hong Kong
2013 Image installation, Korea Tomorrow, ¿¹¼úÀÇ Àü´ç ÇÑ°¡¶÷ ¹Ì¼ú°ü(ºÎ½ºÀü), ¼¿ï