1951 Series











1951 Series
2009
archival pigment, plastic, wood, fluorescent light
6 pieces of 20"x20"x3 1/2"
A series of light box collage pieces titled as 1951 is the field of my exploration where I assemble various resources of my installation projects. Especially through the process of creating "V," I tried to connect many points of my thought using this series. Layering the resources such as photographs my father took in early 50s, technical drafting, historical drawing and diagrams, text and drawings, I created stories and ideas constructed through associations. The ways those elements are associated with each other vary, some are direct, some others are more poetic or metaphorical. This work is my response to the fate of my family that is rooted in the idea of "making" as my father's side is a craftsman family. By combining both technical and emotional process of my creation, I built my fantasy which grounds my installation works.
Below is the text written on the work
**********************
1951 Boys and The City
Anyone whose goal is "something higher" must expect some day to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? Then why do we feel it even when the observation tower comes equipped with a sturdy handrail? No, vertigo is something other than the fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.
(from "Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera)
Horror is a shock, a time of utter blindness. Horror lacks every hint of beauty. All we can see is the piercing light of an unknown event awaiting us. Sadness, on the other hand, assumes we are in the know.
(from "Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera)
There were many conical pits of
Antlion larva in the corner of the backyard
One day in the afternoon, I tossed an ant into a pit
The ant tried to climb up the sandy slope of the pit
The flowing sand kept on sweeping his legs away
He was dancing madly and slowly
Falling into the Center of the pit
(my writing)
The bird is telling you a secret
(my writing)
His lunacy began at the very moment he burst into tears over the horse
(from "Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera; the part talking about Nietzsche)
I began to see the shape of the man - his brilliance, the tremendous force of personality. It gripped you somehow. But also you could see his flaw - he was wholly without scruples, a godless man who thought himself the only god, the only authority he needed.
(a quote by Wernher Von Braun describing A. Hitler)
The miniature chair is shining and sitting on a red velvet platform in a glass case. The chair is gilt and has a relief of the Imperial crest. Open chrysanthemum with sixteen complete petals. Who was guilty, grandma? Sliding door clatters. Shutters and clappers flatter. Leaking rain lights the two electric candles in the household shrine. The rock at the entrance was shiny red. How does it symbolize nature, grandpa? They came back from China and died and left two death certificates behind the door of the closet.
(my writing)
The bird is telling you a secret
(my writing)
In a momentary and fragile silence suspended in rising steam
I was approaching to the shrine, then
A sudden roaring of his insanity forced everything stop
Except a bird flying out of the bamboo grove
(my writing)
The bird is telling you a secret
(my writing)
Handling a corps and fire for cremation by our own hand, which requires physical and mental power, and technical knowledge... That's what modern civilization puts us a part from and what we lost.
(my writing)
The bird is telling you a secret
(my writing)
There were many conical pits of
Antlion larva in the corner of the backyard
ONe day in the afternoon, I tossed an ant into a pit
The ant tried to climb up the sandy slope of the pit
The flowing sand kept on sweeping his legs away
He was dancing madly and slowly
Falling into the Center of the pit
(my writing)
The bird is telling you a secret
(my writing)
Time eats pillars. The triple mirror of Grandma’s dresser is a teller. Bed ridden grandma used to put this baby powder for her bedsore. Grandma’s hairbrush, brown in the dresser. My lover loves putting this baby powder when we have sex. We put self-made dildo in Grandma's dresser. Grandma left her perfume, purple in the dresser. The dildo was made of rubber hose, bandage and condom. Grandma’s hair oil, yellow in the dresser. Burn incense on Grandma’s dresser. Grandma’s hairpins, black in the dresser. Pain on the chest. Rain and raindrops on the chest. Tick-tack talks tells me a tiny tickler.
(my writing)
What is this for?
I continue writing like this in such place.
my flesh and blood which continued being born from women
procrastinates here
In the besieged bunker I build, I have no sense of
my right, left nor front, only my back behind dismally captures me
(my writing)