Again on Shim Young Churl's "Divine Providence" : Yil Lee > Review

• 목록

Again on Shim Young Churl's "Divine Providence"

- Her Eighth Solo Exhibition - 

 Although it is uncertain when the wind of installation art began to blow on Korea, the present state of affairs indicates that installation art will spread more widely. Furthermore, installation art penetrates into other genres of art in such a way that it will eventually make a big change in the domain of modem art. Young Churl Shim is one of the pioneers of this movement who has shown her unique installation works. 

 I mean unique in many senses, First, she is a Irained sculptor. Iter installation works have a complex nature, but her sculptural concept always underlies her installations. In other words, the basic units of her installations are not the simple object but each has its own "plastic nature", and each associates itself with others in such a manner as to be united into "an environmental installation".

 Her installation works are pluralistic in nature; they manifest themselve in the composite materials on one hand, and on the other in the pluralistic method of expression, and the hannonious combination of the two creates an ensemble of installations. The former includes marble, bronze, wood, iron, FRP. and terracotta and the latter include kinetic art, light art, video art and technology art. These are the materials and method with which her works enact an environmental space called "installation".

 This is her eighth solo exhibition which is entitled "the Divine Providence" (Which has the same name as her solo exhibition at the Sun Gallery two years ago) with the addition of subtitle "Love as strong as death". In this title and subtitle we can find the origin of her consistent artistic conception and read her usual "Biblical message".

 It is needless to say that installation works have had an inseparable relation with the exhibition space. In consideration of this fact, her works shown in this exhibition can be classified into three categories, including sculpture, technology, and relief Each of her installation works displayed in separte rooms has its own theme or leitmotiv such as "The Garden of Mushrooms", "Ark and Jars", "Video Monitors", "Bodily Images" and "The Electronic Garden", along with relief works. All of these works have a condensed religious symbolism.

 What altracts our attention among these works and what the artist has long conceived is the garden of mushrooms. Mushroom means to the artist another source of life, the primordial life and is the energy of the original creation which transcends time and space, and at the same time represents man's corporality. Mushrooms of all shapes and colors are the products of nature, but they do not end at this. This life force is associated with-life itself and Eros, the root of life, which is Young Churl Shim eternal theme of art.

 To the artist, Eros is nothing but the Divine Providence which may also be called the "Providence of Encounter". It is through the Eros that man meets his God. The Divine Providence reigns over nature, and it is here that man's life-love is united with the creation of nature. What the artist to represent through her mushrooms is the world of this union, and what is specially noteworthy is her positive introduction of technology as a means of embodying this world of union. Young Churl Shim works are the arena of "meeting" of God and man, nature and technology in the religious dimension and at the same time a kind of synthetic environmental art in the dimension of plastic art.

 I have to reserve concrete comments on her works because installation is a works in site that is, it is impossible to meet in advance the completed works. Be that as it may, there is a chue, albeit indirect, to approach Young Churl Shim current works; that is to review the traces of her activitles in the pas. It is not a simple review, but shedding a new light on the world of her works.

 It is not the place to ruminate on the traces of her past. The point is as the artist said that her works are the union of the concept and method in her artistic message, to what extent she is successful in visualizing her ideas. The answer to this question is also given by the artist herself: "to present a complex total artistic environment which creates a new artistic space", which she has been pursuing consistently now as before

 Her spiritual resources which enabled such a consistent pursuit is her faith in the Divine Providence, and on the ogher hand, another resource of the artist is her "experimental spirit". What is born out of this is her plastic materal repertory wide in range and diversity. It is because of this works simply installation, seems to link the entire PERSPECTIVE. Her "the complex artistic environment" may hold the answer to this question which may indeed present another horizon for the plastic form.

by Yil Lee, Art Critic 

Gallery Artbeam, April 1996