2007 Lee yong woo

In the West, philosophical analyses of Asian culture often stop at labels such as Buddhist, Confucian, Zen, naturalist, and other generalities. These labels are too pat and opportunistic, however, to have any hope of applying to the East, for they put politics and religion in the same basket and ignore the many historical events in which the gap between the two was impassable.

This abusive type of simplification generates polarizing contradictions that are no different from those arising when one labels the West as Christian or steeped in Greek classicism or adhering to Darwinist evolutionary principles. Similar labels that seek to explain differences between East and West have appeared in the visual arts. Confrontational concepts and historical dualities that try to elucidate East and West polarities are also ineffective.

Two cases in point are the Korean artists Kim Haesook and Lee Kyungho, in whose work it would be impossible to find the so-called Asian sublime or spirit of contemplation. Instead, they look at the pleasure and pain born of capitalism and the information age, but with a sadder, more violent edge than what Western sensibility is used to seeing. Their aesthetic language, which underlines our ignorance, misbehavior, and materialism, suggests that we live a more spiritual life, much like proposing that we do ornithological research instead of merely gaping at the beautiful flight of birds in the sky.

Kim creates art from animal skins that exist to satisfy our desire to make ourselves and our surroundings seem more beautiful. Rarely do we consider that the skins are the remains of what were once living creatures. To these skins the artist tacks on our vain self-deceptions and money making, the result of which is an obstinate take on vivisection (the dissection of a living organism).

In the exhibition space Kim has created an installation of the skins taken from three dead crocodiles, whose bloodthirsty instincts when they were alive are matched by those of man. The skins of the three beasts seem to be crawling with difficulty toward Bodhidharma, who is their savior from having been skinned to death. The crocodile skins’ mouths are probably filled with bad karma and the debts they must pay for their savage conduct in former lives. The artist has positioned the dry, stiff skins so that they appear to plead for salvation. In this work the sad shell of a being once alive and now, in death, finally returned to its essence dominates the space in its encounter with the many exhibition visitors.

Lee Kyungho has a wonderful knack for transforming hopeless science and technology into art. He seems to believe that for technology to become art, science and poetry must absolutely intervene. He uses new media to create poetic images that the spectator most often completes, and stages the sad refrain of constant ear-shattering noise heard in so many places in modern society.

In his digital video images of beautiful moonlight the artist suggests that today’s rich technology and scientific applications function like yesterday’s paintbrush.

Lee created monumental works for the 2004 Gwangju Biennale and the 2006 Shanghai Biennale. One was a very old cookie maker that made one cookie every 30 seconds, which the artist offered to a spectator – either to eat on the spot or to take away in a plastic cookie bag designed by Miuccia Prada – the very same of Prada fame. The other work consisted of 50 mini excavators that dug up the wooden floor for the duration of the biennale. The noise in the exhibition space, day after day, was terrible, like a desperate cry for society to wake up from a technological nightmare.

The metaphorical and satirical works of Kim Haesook and Lee Kyungho exploit a visual language that is ostentatious and passionate, in a style synched with the zeitgeist of contemporary art. Their work is a master class on how art can speak plainly about community and engage the spectator in a satisfying dialogue.

Yongwoo Lee