Point. Line. Plane : Kim, Woo Young's 'Plane' art

Jiyoon Lee_ Art historian & Curator

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NOVEMBER 2017

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Until up to the mid-20th century, photography as a medium was mainly seen and used as a documentary medium, developing in craftsmanship and printing technology in the context of achieving perfection in craftsmanship. From art historical perspective, photography is also an interesting medium as each succeeding generation interpreted and used it in different ways. It is not an exaggeration to say that Impressionist movement of the 19th century, which increased the scope and understanding of what painting can be, was a reaction to the development of photography which as a medium was able to capture world in a detailed and realistic, and if wanted, artistic manner, thus making the much of the existing role and function of painting obsolete. In the context of contemporary art history, one can say that photography found its place as a 'tableau' medium in 1971 when Bernd and Hilla Becher started to work in Dusseldorf Kunst Academy, aligning and understanding this medium with the burgeoning growth of conceptual art. Kunst Academy, along with Joseph Beuys, was then an important contributor of formalizing Conceptual Art and became a home and growth-place of artist-photographers, many of whom we know well today. Beginning with the concept of 'New Objectivity,' they began to produce 'tableau'-style photographic works. Bechers became better known the contemporary art world with their invitation to the 'Information' exhibition at MoMA, New York in 1970 and Kassel Documenta in 1972 and cleared the paths for work of their students such as Thomas Strauss, Thomas Ruff, Andrea Gursky and Candida Hoffer. Other important contributors include those of the 'Picture Generation', which include Cindy Sherman with her performance art photographs, Richard Prince with his autobiographical pieces, and Jeff Wall with his large-scale art boxes and staged works. All of these artists can be said to have pushed and developed photography from craft and skill-based, highly accessible and publicized medium into an important artistic medium, pushing artists to create to art through constant observation and questioning.

Point: Accidental Encounter

The above was a short introduction to provide a context in which to discuss works by Kim, Woo Young, and why he transitioned from a highly successful photographer into one focusing on the works shown here. Originally an undergraduate of Hongik University with major in City Planning, he returned to the Industrial Design Department to study photography, after which, in the 1990s, he left for New York School of Visual Art. His chance encounter with James Moore led him to take part in fashion magazine KGB, and that work led him to found a Korean men's magazine HIM in 1994. During that period he began to construct then-uncommon editorial-style fashion photography, and application of this paradigm to advertisement and fashion magazines led to substantial commercial success. But, feeling the limitation of his works in those fields, he resolved not to take part in advertisement photography, leading to a 3-4 year period of re-self discovery. His wandering led him to North America via Hawaii, and during his 3-year travels, he started to photograph cities with self-imposed constraint, using only a standard lens. He says that at that time he was infatuated with deep dawn light and had life-changing encounters in the empty streets.

Line: Series of Time

There is arrested time in his works. We see City-scapes of cities in retreat. Detroit. Montreal. Of course, the works do not specify the cities. Titles just show the number of street and avenue. There is no other information, no people. There is no direction and movement of light. We can only see that they are streets in cities, waiting for an artist like an empty stage. These photographs are not photo-shopped, but when looking at these their almost abstract nature makes the viewers wonder if they actually exist in this world. Indeed, these large-scale color photographs feel more like hard-edged abstract paintings. Cameras are fixed at a given point and show objects in neutral and objective manner. Reminiscent of Duchamp's ready-made objects, the artist photographed the streets within their specific context. However, these works cannot be seen as just documentary photograph, as it is not just capturing the nature of the object, but also that of its form and attraction and artistic quality as seen by the artist. It is this 'New Objectivity' which drives Kim, Woo Young's powerful city color landscape painting. By continuous and repeated observation and capture of the street he found by chance encounters, the artist finds the overlaid timescape, and it is this timescape which is found in his works. Thus, it is the artist's creative observation over that of the documentary landscape that creates this tension and quality.

Plane: Anti-Landscape of Overlaid Time

Kim started his Hanok series in 2015 after an invitation to take part in 'House of Haegok Choi Soon Woo,' and it is then when he discovers walls of these traditional Korean houses. These walls belong to traditional houses, of which only a few remain in their original forms. Overlaid with time, one can see ancient treelines in these walls, and Kim used these walls as subject for his works. As in his previous works, there is no indication of when and where these works were taken. However, his interviews indicate that there was high degree of calculation and intentionality in these works. He stated that when he tried to use color photography, he felt that he lost something, and feeling that black and white was the ideal colors for traditional Korean house, he worked on this series only in the winter. Hence, although he captured the walls in a highly objective manner, by manipulating the context and conditions, he changed the nature's color palette to that of his own. So, even though these were color photographs, the walls were captured in a manner reminiscent of black and white photographs. The three-dimensional objects of street, floors, space and walls were removed of visual contaminants and remade into new 'plane' art using Kim's visual language. So, these walls are like new abstract paintings, new calligraphy, capturing the aura of eastern traditional paintings. However what makes these paintings more interesting is that they are not limited to just romanticism or visual aesthetics. We can see also in the interpretation of dark empty spaces steeped in black humor. The walls he found in the cities are those of empty tenancies, or of those overlaid with various colors painted over the years. It is the same with traditional houses. Although the walls in their original conditional are now almost non-existent, he found within the beauty of the original walls. They are like fossils of the old, and hence these works are not just capturing momentary time, but also questioning of what is left and discarded by civilization and people as a whole.

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