Jung Hyung Tak _ Independent Curator/Science of Art
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JUNE 2023
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Kim Woo-young crosses the American continent from east to west, as if it were an annual event. To pass through the small towns of the Rocky Mountains, which may close at any time due to the cold winter, meticulous preparation is required. In addition to protective gear for the body, food for daily use in the mountains, and the energy to endure the harsh winter, the most important thing is the moment of determination when one must repeatedly select the ever-heavier body and the diminishing mind. Such a transcontinental journey seems necessary not only for the pattern of Kim Woo-young's life as an artist but also for the works that will manifest through it. This journey, undertaken by the artist as a ritual of his life, is revealed through photographs of old buildings, arched windows, meticulously composed trash cans, and walls. However, within them, the moments when the artist nurtures and cherishes his dwindling self are deleted or concealed. Behind the photographs that appear as flat abstractions or compositional paintings, such landscapes are hidden.
The reason for using the term "scenic scenery" with a somewhat narrative nuance, different from the artist's works, is the fact that the artist repeatedly visits the same places each year to complete such landscapes. Photography inevitably requires time and is the most common way to structure time narratively, but such elements are missing in Kim Woo-young's photographs. Concealment or deletion of time and narrative. Changing city and street landscapes every year, fading individuals, and small narratives in the neighborhood are removed from the photographs. The long periods of time spent visiting cities and buildings annually and meeting people are absent in the photographs.
"The ritual is distant from narcissistic subjectivity. The libido is directed toward the self, not the object, and cannot be combined with the ritual" (Han Byung-chul, "The End of Ritual").
The ritual of traveling or hiking is an act of establishing a relationship with others rather than being centered on the self. Travelers or walkers inevitably shift their gaze to others outside their own bodies. For example, they wonder how the abandoned building they visited last year has changed, or whether Patrick and his family are still doing well. It is about being interested in things like whether the grandmother next door is still alive, due to the sound of scratching car windows last night, or the piled-up snow suddenly drawing attention in the late morning when one has slept late. The time and events of the artist's pilgrimage-like journey, which is carried out as a ritual, exist solely within the artist's inner self and do not manifest in his works. The artist exercises restraint so that the realities of life do not overflow with sensory excess. Perhaps because he considers mundane daily life or forms to be unbearable. Instead of groping the landscapes he encountered in a melancholy manner like rain, he presents photographs composed of smooth surfaces, light, and colors. He strives to keep the trivialities of human life from intruding into the aesthetics of the image. As if seeking eternity, he diligently waits for cloudy days, dawn, and evening, which do not cast shadows in photographs, to press the shutter. In those photos where there are no shadows to reveal depth, no pedestrians passing by on the streets, no desert wind shaking tree branches in the central part of the country, and no birds resting momentarily, the artist's trembling hands and tense breath also disappear, leaving only form, composition, and color.
"The artist wore the clothes of art but had trembling hands."
-Dante, in his work "The Divine Comedy," said
That usually painting is done, and photography is taken. Painting constructs the subject on the canvas, while photography captures or collects the existing subject. However, such a negative definition of photography needs to be reconsidered when examining the concept of art. Any artist is someone who systematizes and cultivates their senses to showcase the essence of life. Photography is the artist's eye and hand even before it is an optical medium.
The trembling eyes and hands connected to the brain are artistic machines that seek the essence of life and light. During his study abroad in the United States (from 1989 to 1996), when he stayed up countless nights creating images in the darkroom, when he wandered alone through the early mornings of Manhattan, following the mysteries of light and the excitement of his work, when he created a new type of fashion and advertising photography in Korea, his photographs created their own form. He elevated the sensitivity to objects, which can be seen as the starting point of photography, and
brought the medium of photography, which can be considered as the end point of photography, into the realm of his sensory perception.
"When I'm in a room, the world surpasses my understanding. But when I walk, I realize that the world is composed of a few hills and a single cloud."
- Wallace Stevens, "On the Surface of Things"
The artist's wounds or the everyday encounters during his travels may exist behind arched windows or colorful walls somewhere beyond, but we cannot find them. The poignant essence of life exists not in landscapes but within the forms that compose and erase the landscapes. All art is born not from the way we see the world but from the way we create it. Within Kim Woo-young's concise American landscapes, unknown landscapes are hidden, just like the truth of life.
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