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My work has been driven with the motive of how to articulate the Korean Art in the postmodern world, especially focusing on how I can communicate with others across various distinctions such as genders, social classes, tradition/ modern/ postmodern, or Eastern/ Western world. Preparing my works for the Master degree, I felt a frustration by realizing that I could not clearly understand Korean traditional arts which included paintings as well as poems. This frustration made me think about how we can communicate not only with our ancestors but also with other people in contemporary world too. Today our life is no more organized by the rational modernity but it rather involves the postmodern scheme which allows us an autonomous internal space. Obviously, the postmodernity liberates our life from the power of the modern reason, but it also brings about a peril that we can enjoy freedom only within our confined area with limited communication. Thus, we have a new urgent task in the postmodern world; that is how to communicate with others.
In this context, I made a series of works, Utopia, as a way to animate artistic communication. Utopia does not exist in the real world and nobody can claim which idea of Utopia is absolutely right. Thus, we can naturally come to recognize other people’s ideas of Utopia. Plus, Utopia also offers us limitless rich theme to communicate with others, because everyone has his own free idea about Utopia. Indeed, as Utopia is a boundless theme that we can imagine, it can expand the boundary of our artistic imagination without any restriction. Accordingly, Utopia is not only an ideal that each individual can image freely, but also an open space where we can communicate our limitless imagination without any restriction.
I organize the Utopia series with the contrasting arrangement of our current real world and those our past days. I also try to deconstruct conventional idea of Utopia by representing current real world with abstract theme of raw material and those past days with more concrete images. With this ironical scheme I intend to formulate Utopia as a medium whereby we can communicate our bondless imagination.
My Installation art efforts start with preparing my 4th individual exhibition entitled “EX-interior,” which represents the urgent Korean condition in those days which could not match the decorative interior theme. It has unique forms, as it is organized beyond the canvas and extends to exhibition hall’s wall and floor to emphasize the exhibition’s spontaneity.
[Wall’s Eye] is a piece to represent deteriorating Korean society and disintegrating Korean family after observing social internal of so called IMF period. [On the Teheran road] is a piece driven from a motif of those intelligent buildings on the Teheran constructed with curtain wall method, as they look like a scheme of hidden power in terms of Panopticon. [ At the Express Bus Terminal] shows a slice of desolate Korean society with the scene of the terminal that almost lost its supposed function as a primary traffic hub.
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“Distance of non-Distance” is an effort to capture based on our life change after 2000, especially following the introduction of new internet system those changes of individual surroundings, reduced physical distance, and space reorganization, which involves reconstruction of the entire capitalist market system. Thus, Distance of non-Distance tries to depict dynamic and even contradictory our living condition involved with continuously reconstructed our space in terms of both becoming continuously narrower space but at the same time endlessly broadening to cover wider space. Especially, to show today’s Panopticon setting, at the spot in front of the gate I set up observatory as conventional observing method and build up a transparent house on the floor within construction debris.
Historically agora is a space where all kinds of human activities converge and spread out. Cultural space, art realize itself, more desire for freedom converge. Indeed, Agora in the modern era also become spot where ugly power reveal itself and new desire to overcome that ugly power also spread out of the agora. With the artistic interpretation scheme I try to reconstruction Korean society in 2008, especially the candlelight gathering caused by the uncommunicable condition. Organizing exhibition space and canvas altogether, I set the canvas to absorb those reflected appreciator’s body through mirror and opaque glasses. So with this extended the canvas scheme, I try to transform the exhibition site into agora itself which is a part of our life. Plus, I also make shadow with those works leaning against the wall in order to reshuffle the boundary between installation art and fine art painting. With this pioneering exhibition arrangement, I also try to make a new step in the practice of fine art painting exhibition.
My master requesting exhibition is critical part of artistic journey, as I can articulate my primary work scheme. Thus, even if it looks quite different from my recent works, it is actually closely linked to the recent works in terms of the theme of communication.
My master requesting exhibition starts with my identity question between tradition and modern. Specifically, I tried to articulate out society’s structural cultural conflict among different groups. Especially, paying attention to different generation who share different memory such as industrialization generation and democratization generation, I come to discover each generation’s uncommunicatable discourse as the roots of the conflict. I also realized the same issue can be applied to our oriental painting field. Out traditional painting had developed with the scheme of “poem and picture unity,” which puts the same emphasis both poem and painting altogether. However, after the March First movement, Choson Art Exhibition excluded calligraphy and the “four gentlemen plants” which then became a part of the oriental painting. This was a great junction in our painting history as it came to exclude text from painting and then art works started to be organized with images exclusively. From that time, we suddenly become a lost generation who cannot read the text of the traditional our painting. In this context, I tried to articulate our condition of incapable of reading the text behind the traditional paintings as theme for my MA requesting exhibition. In other words, modernism not in terms of grand narrative which allow more communicative possibility but in terms of fragmented and distorted discourse that rather divided ourselves by generation. I don’t think there is any such a thing as the authentic Korean Art. Instead, the Korean Art is the outcome of many artists’ efforts to articulate the best artistic imagination. Such best imagination cannot be made by a single great artist’s isolated work; rather it is the outcome of the best communication with other artistic imagination. In this context, I believe my effort to communicate across the various distinctions will end up with the best Korean artistic imagination eventually.
학 력
2004 성균관대학교 동양철학과 박사과정 수료
1998 중앙대학교 대학원 회화학과 한국화전공 졸업
1993 중앙대학교 예술대학 회화학과 한국화전공 졸업
개인전
2010 Entangled / 더케이 갤러리
2008 광장의 벽화 / 관훈갤러리 신관
2007 너 되기 / 금호미술관 제2전시장
단체전
2009 Revolution예술제2009 / 타이베이 무역센터전시장
2008 이방인의 빈방 / 뒤셀도르프미술관 발하우스(뒤셀도르프)
2007 서울에서 온 작가들 / 이볼빙갤러리(샌프란시코)
2006 미술관 카바레 / 광주시립미술관
Choi, Eek-Jin / Born in 1968 (Seoul Korea
Education
2004, Ph. D. Candidate, Songkyunkwan University
1998, M. A.,
1993, B. A.,
Individual Exhibitions
2010 Entangled / The K Gallery
2008 Agoa’s Mural Painting / Kwanhoon Gallery
2007 Becoming You / The Second Exhibition Hall,
Invitation Art Exhibitions
2009 Art Festival Revolution 2009 / Taipei Trade Center
2008 Sojourner’s Empty Room / Museum Duesseldorf (
2007 Korean Artist from
2006 The Exhibition of Cabaret in Art Museum / Gawngju Museim of Art
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