Men! Where Are We From, Where Are We, Where Are We Going? - Yil Lee > Review

• 목록

Men! Where Are We From, Where Are We, Where Are We Going?

Young Churl Shim Third Solo Exhibition

 The title of the exhibition sounds very much biblical. In fact, Young churl Shim work is her mission to propagate a religious message and her artistic conception is also rooted in religion.

 Like in the case of other artists, this is an absolute proposition which defines all the artistic activity. Young churl Shim belongs to this category of artist. She professes herself to be a sculptor and a propagator of a religious message. Her artistic credo and ability also follow a higher principle.

 However, this principle should not be a unilateral one which constrains free artistic activity. This implies, in other words, that religious conception and artistic inspiration are not two entirely different things, but religious devotion will yield the more fruitful artistic accomplishment. This, in the case of Yong churl Shim, helps her to expand her artistic repertory, and it is for this very reason that her "religious environmental works" shown in her third solo exhibition attract our attention. In other words, her works are not mere "illustrations of the Bible" but how she wrapped the religious message in an artistic form.

 Yong churl Shim is a sculptor above anything else. However, the concept of 'sculpture' has been so much eroded in recent years that the concept itself has been disintegrated. In such circumstances. Shim seems to enact an integrated plastic art forum (including that of religious message) under the premise of such a disintegration.

 In fact, she transforms the exhibition hall into an independent space for artistic and religious enactment. This space is composed of many and diverse elements and each of them is a unit of an independent work, for example, ordinary sculptures such as human figures or part of the human body, a head of goat, relief and others; ordinary objets including a log, barbed wire fence, a mirror, a ladder and a piece of cotton cloth; and light and video or more properly a kind of automatic performance including water-screen, video light and reflection of a mirror. These are combined to form an integrated environmental installation.

 The environment is not simply a physical one. Each unit of works conveys a religious message and the environment composed of these units is transformed into a more sublimated spiritual space. In other words, the assemblage of ordinary objects and others is a bridge leading to the spiritual representation.

 The environmental installation as a spiritual space requires the presence of a third person (visitor). Some works simply do not work without the presence of a third person. The presence of a person implies an encounter with the work and in this encounter the person is carried away beyond the work into another world of revelation. This revelation is expressed not by the conventional Christian iconography but by various methods of modern art. In this very fact we can find the real meaning of Young Churl Shim's art.

 In her work as a sculptor she faces a tremendous problem arising from the conflict between the religious message contained in her work and her method of visualizing the message according to her artistic idioms. Because she does not seem to be content with a simple illustration of the Bible. She mobilizes all the possible methods, styles and materials in order to visualize the message. And she wants them to claim their own right in the total context of modern art.

 In the context of modern her works may belong to the light art, kinetic art or installation art, but viewed as a whole her works transcend the iconographic limit as well as typological categories. The assemblage of Bibles which reminds one of ancient Egyptian staircase-shaped pyramid, the water-screen which depicts the image of Christ on the water flowing glass panel, the images created by a computer negative flim, relief works and neon collages, through these works she tries to expand the province of her plastic art. Her spirit of show-down with problems along with her religious proposition is the driving force of all her works.

by Lee Yil, Art Critic 

Source: November 1990 INKONG Gallery