Jung Woon Kim
27 Nov - 31 Dec 2010
JUNG WOON KIM
Imaginary Stage
27 November - 31 December 2010
Car parks and petrol stations are typical non-places in urban architecture. Ambivalent spaces that slip into oblivion the moment you have passed them, almost unconsciously, leaving neither attachment nor memories. Places like these are the basic material of the young South Korean artist Jung Woon Kim (born in Seoul in 1981), who is currently studying at the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf, under the supervision of Professor Rita McBride.
Photographs of two different places, frequently urban, are juxtaposed on the basis of certain formal features. They are curved and placed loosely over one another, so that they literally occupy the space. Kim then transforms these works by painting over them associatively. The paint is sometimes the vehicle that binds the two photographs; in other cases it literally drips off them. By this process, Kim appears to literally expand her view of reality by transcending the standard rectangular photographic image and connecting it to her associations and her own memories. The initially recognizable places are distorted and exaggerated, in a dreamlike manner. While the photograph frames the space at an instant in time, the documentary quality of the original image vanishes into the background as a result of the artistic treatment – as if the transformation has captured the vague memories of these places and given them substance. Instead of a non-place, Jung Woon Kim thus creates a psycho-geography, in which shifts or atmosphere and mood appear to become visible.
[LC]
Imaginary Stage
27 November - 31 December 2010
Car parks and petrol stations are typical non-places in urban architecture. Ambivalent spaces that slip into oblivion the moment you have passed them, almost unconsciously, leaving neither attachment nor memories. Places like these are the basic material of the young South Korean artist Jung Woon Kim (born in Seoul in 1981), who is currently studying at the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf, under the supervision of Professor Rita McBride.
Photographs of two different places, frequently urban, are juxtaposed on the basis of certain formal features. They are curved and placed loosely over one another, so that they literally occupy the space. Kim then transforms these works by painting over them associatively. The paint is sometimes the vehicle that binds the two photographs; in other cases it literally drips off them. By this process, Kim appears to literally expand her view of reality by transcending the standard rectangular photographic image and connecting it to her associations and her own memories. The initially recognizable places are distorted and exaggerated, in a dreamlike manner. While the photograph frames the space at an instant in time, the documentary quality of the original image vanishes into the background as a result of the artistic treatment – as if the transformation has captured the vague memories of these places and given them substance. Instead of a non-place, Jung Woon Kim thus creates a psycho-geography, in which shifts or atmosphere and mood appear to become visible.
[LC]