After an eight-year hiatus, Hong Myung-seop, an established artist recognized for reiecti ng the fixed concepts and values of the art world to mold his own unique artistic boundaries, featured an exhibition titled < Shadowless, Artless, Mindless— Creeping Pieces > at the OCI Museum last winter. In this exhibition, Hong showcased varied layers of artistic expression. The works, including ‘The Way of Existence of Body-Time’, which uses a lenticular method to show the ambivalence of flowers; ‘Running Railroad—Running Sound Road’, which portrays the artists will to express horizontality; and‘Waterproof’, his first ever sound installation work, all took up individual spaces inside the exhibition area. In Art Talk, we look into Hong's world through two different points of view: that of an established critic who has watched Hong's career develop over 20 years, and a young critic who has worked as an art journalist and curator.
With the election season, there has been a flood of rallying cries on the street, asking people to participate in politics. Asking people to participate in politics, in other words, means asking them to vote. Amidst this general mood, I focused my attention on OCI Museum's recent exhibition of Hong Myung-seob's works. The fact of the matter is, his works seem far from both concrete reality and social interests, let alone any sort of political message. His three installation works look static and makes the exhibition space look quite hollow. However, his works are quite defiant. For viewers who are used to listening attentively for the artist's inner voice, Hong Myung-seob suggests a sort of sport. His works cannot be fully appreciated by looking at them in one place and taking a simple single-perspective approach. Only by becoming filled with the movements of the viewers and through a network of people’s senses do his works become completed.
Upon entering the gallery, one notices a fancy lenticular image installed on the first floor wall. When you try to look inside the many circles, you become more confused as to the exact shape of the work. When you take one step back and try to reassemble the fragmented images in your head, the shape of a flower comes through. The vividness of the flower image, which sparks with each step, even conjures an ominous feeling with its strange, artificial colors. On the second floor, it is not easy for the audience to set out step-by-step, as a sound like the hammering of cast-iron-slipper-bound footsteps rings out as soon as they follow the parallel lines, racing against the speed of time. Although the viewpoint of moving around freely in time and space severely reduces the size of the gallery, the space looks limitlessly spacious in proportion to the viewers' now logged body. When inside the dark room on the third floor, the plunging sound of water lingers in your ears.
These three works are completely different in appearance but are similar in that they let you continuously experience an unseeable connection between your body and the work, an experience in which the work reacts to the body's movements and your body reacts to the work. After encountering this parade of synaesthesias, the elements that we believe our singular selves are composed of prove themselves to be fiction. The confusing feeling of incongruous cognition is proof that you are appreciating the work adequately. Hong Myung-seob's works in themselves do not possess any message or meaning. They only awaken your autonomous, individual panorama of senses, which you had forgotten from the dullness of everyday life. The speed of the world is already in an incomprehensible state. However, because of our obsession to try and catch up to this speed, we try to optimize our lives in this closed circuit of simplified thoughts. Hong Myung-seob has created a device for those who have lived according only to the rhythm in their heads, those who have listened to the rhythm of their bodies. However, this change is not limited to just piecing together the puzzles of the self, but also becomes the basis for escaping a closed ego and stretching outside of oneself.
Some people might criticize Hong Myung-seob's works for being mere aesthetic works that are unrelated to society and reality. In fact, Hong is guarding against degenerating reality into material for art. This stems from his self-reflection, resisting the sugar-coatedness of the world and trying to create another reality. The problems of the stubborn, unified group that is Korean society, which has gone through Japanese colonialism, the North-South divide, and a dictatorship, cannot be solved by pointing fingers and blaming a select few politicians or executives. Instead of designating and accusing an absolute figure, Hong Myung-seob focuses on the marginalized parts of life and the mobility that seeps into the inner most parts of individual existence. In this sense, Hong showcases a surprising level of consistency in his works. His approach is to check and reflect upon our own lives before trying to change the world. This refers to realizing the invisible chain between “you” and “I” and admitting a first-person responsibility towards other people's pains. If politics is realizing the common denominator in human beings and striving towards the truth of life, participating in politics is a cultural phenomenon, a system of thinking, and a way of life. It is not something that leaves our hands along with the ballot on Election Day.
Hong Myung-seop, Shadowless, Artless, Mindless - Creeping Pieces
Walking into the weightlessness of truth _ Kim Ji-hae(Independent curator, aesthetics)
Sculpture, as a way of dissipation and impermanence _ Park Young Taek(Professor at Kyonggi University, Art Critic)
Lee Seulbi graduated from the ancient art history department at Donga University and went on to receive a master's degree from the art history department at Ewha Womans University. She was picked in the art criticism contest organized by [Art In Culture] and currently writes for [Monthly Art].