The Place of Existence for Creation
The Place of Existence for Creation
Sunyoung Lee (art critic)
It is a fundamental narrative of the modern
era that universal division of labor increased both productivity and isolation
of humans. Some proposed an alternative in the form of revolution or reform,
but the dualistic nature of progress or development is an ongoing paradox that
is still affecting us. The only way to overcome the fragmented reality as a
result of extreme division of labor in our daily lives is through leisure.
However, consumption to fill one¡¯s leisure supports isolated labor. Can art
propose an alternative to this vicious cycle, or to those who are dismissed
even by the vicious cycle? Unlike divided labor, art is a holistic activity
that requires not only one¡¯s imagination but also the dream, subconscious, and
every drop of sweat. Although art can be a pain to some, it can also be a
source of joy to others. Art as a holistic activity causes ¡®Finding Flow,¡¯
which was a theme for the recent solo exhibition of Moon, Sooman in Daegu.
After spending his 30s as a successful
venture entrepreneur, he became an artist in his 40s, and, for that reason, he
must have stronger faith in art and rely on it more than anyone else. However,
the Korean art scene does not share his vision, although he seems likely to
continue his work regardless of such ¡®objective¡¯ vision. The art scene, in
which multiple biennales are held each year, only reflects fragmented works in
a fragmented way and, as a result, fail to convey the messages of art as a
whole. The pictures of artworks printed on monthly magazines do not reveal the
essence of the artworks and there are only limited explanations. They are
simply filled with unfinished paintings and articles. Products that were
created within their own fields cannot be fully enjoyed. And such fragmentalism
continues, probably because of the power behind it. Unfortunately, it is
reckless for artists to pour everything into their works as it is becoming more
and more obvious that power is what you need in order to make mediocre works
stand out. Everywhere you go, they only talk about money and connection.
If, in a fashion show, you see only
grotesque clothes that nobody would be able to understand, you will need to
question the power that enables these clothes to be put on the stage, even if
nobody will buy or wear them, rather than simply blaming the incomprehensible
nature of fashion. Thanks to those who arbitrarily display biased information,
art is becoming more and more exclusive. Moon, Sooman¡¯s works, regardless of
their scales, show highly concentrated density and strength in style, and it
seems to be part of the artist¡¯s strategy as someone who is far from the power
that supports absurdity. Each of his round paintings is complete on their own,
and this enables his works to travel around the world without any ¡®hidden¡¯
power behind them or even the artist himself. His upcoming solo exhibition ¡®Ô¶ÍïªÎìÏ(Poter¡¯s wing)¡¯, which is to be held at Gallery Kitanozaka (ÝÁå¯÷ø) in
Kobe, Japan, in October, shows his works in which different elements were
placed according to his own rules.
With delicate elements such as flowers,
butterfly, and even void and cracks placed by using exterior materials that are
generally applied to ships, his paintings are paradoxical in that, to open
them, you need to close them. Only the perfect can be ¡®together.¡¯ Different
pieces of his paintings share a similar image according to the series, as if
they were cut off the same stem. While a stem is diachronic, a section is
synchronic. A section in a stem satisfies both self-sufficiency and continuity.
They have the past and the future and also enjoys the fulfilled present. They
exist and disappear at the same time. This method enables containing the whole
in parts, rather than leaving the parts as separate entities. The audience can
restructure continuity from such discontinuity. In one painting, you see a
flower fully blossoming, in another, you just see a butterfly, and, in others,
you see just void and cracks. The plate-like round canvas contains a void.
The round frame serves as a symbol suitable
for conveying the sense of nothingness or infinity. It maximizes the nature of
art, revealing infinity with finiteness. In the [Ô¶Íï, the poter] series, the artist shows
changes in stains or brightness, for the audience who may resist (or fear)
blank. [Filing empty-2], which reveals a celadon void filled with cracks,
reminds us of some divine act to create various shapes of topography by
flicking a surface. [ðàúÅ, make a perfume] series and [Øæ, vein], for which Moon won an award in Japan, shows the flow of force such
as with fragrance and sound that dissipates from the center. When these
energies become materialized, they would turn into a mountain or valley, just
like in his paintings. All solid things such as mountains and valleys must have
been a type of energy at one time. It is also a network of energy, like the
pulse of butterfly, that is omnipresent in his other series. In Moon¡¯s
paintings, such pulse is sometimes realized in fine forms like cracks.
Fine cracks, which are affected by
temperature and pressure, imply disconnection of what was once connected. The
thick pulses seem disconnected in his paintings but are connected underneath.
The [Finding Flow] series is comparable to mandala, as it arranges flowers on
the celadon background and sometimes fill the space between the center and
outer edge of the paintings with complex patterns, through which the viewers
get lost and gain enlightenment. The round canvas is still but conveys
movement. However, the center is as quiet as the hub of a wheel. Sometimes,
like in [ðàúÅ-04], a tornado is lying beneath
the paintings, producing and absorbing everything. The center plays an
important role in his paintings that are small yet infinite. Jean Salem, in his
book Ancient Atomism, introduces the philosopher Epicurus who viewed the space
as being infinite. His these that ¡®there is an infinite number of worlds¡¯ also applies to Moon¡¯s
works at the center of which lies potential movement.
According to the ancient atomism, when the
cosmos was created, tornadoes of different kinds of atoms fell out of it.
Atomists believed that the cosmos consists of atoms and void. The number of
atoms and size of void are also infinite. To them, the cosmos is ¡®overall
infinite and the subsets of it, i.e., atoms and void, are also
infinite¡¯(Lucretius). In such infinite cosmos, atoms make up the world by
various combinations and arrangements. The [Finding Flow] series, which
contains plant shapes, show potential movements like spokes. In a painting of
the [Ô¶ÍïªÎìÏ] series, plants are arranged like spokes. The center of a wheel does
not move. This center is something that ¡®moves while not moving¡¯ (Aristotle).
In this context, the butterfly, which is at the center of the [Ô¶ÍïªÎìÏ] series is not fixed. It is a center of the movement for ¡®eternal
return (Nietzsche)¡¯ along the circumference, and this center changes gradually
through repetition and difference.
Butterflies must coevolve with humans,
reacting subtly to the ecosystem. The [Ô¶ÍïªÎìÏ] series features atavistic
butterflies, which are a trademark of Moon. From the early days as an artist,
he has used butterflies as an icon that shows diversity of the nature. The
butterflies in his paintings maintain a consistent form and, thereby, maximize
small differences. It is a way of maximizing diversity through one. When you
see the butterflies, each of them placed on a single canvas, it is like the
butterflies change the pattern with each flap of their wings. And this movement
perhaps changes the time and space to which they belong. The flapping wings
cause a subtle wavelength and sends the ¡®butterfly effect¡¯ to a time and place
that is far away. The strong pulse and fine cracks shown in other paintings of
his are visual representation of such wavelength. The artist simulates
diversity of the nature. Although there are pictures of butterflies above his
worktable on which various tools including a magnifying glass are placed, he no
longer looks at butterflies or the pictures of them when painting.
The paintings of Moon Suman are precise but
not representative. Representation cannot convey such diversity and amusement
shown in his paintings. The fine downy hair you can observe through a
magnifying glass gives a strange effect, but it is the butterflies¡¯ wings that
are at the center of the diverse look. Instead of being fixated on a particular
image of butterflies, he imitates the process through which a butterfly is born
and goes through metamorphosis. The brush strokes create certain waves, and,
when the fine details are added, the pattern of the butterfly is crystallized. This
means, coincidence plays a role in the process of painting a butterfly and a
background for it. In Moon¡¯s paintings, butterflies are more like fantasy. And
that is why they are so clear. As a referent, butterflies are a key to entering
into the fantasy world. The white background often found in his early works,
which reminds us of collection boxes, transformed into pottery with cracks or
corroded bronze. The surfaces with fine cracks or corrosion give the artificial
background a natural feel.
What does not change is the shape that
represents the characteristics of a butterfly and presence of a shadow, which
gives the illusion that the butterfly is real. The symbol of beauty and
diversity that used to bed confined in a white rectangle now settled on the color
and shape of infinity. However,. Butterflies, which the artist can now paint
without reference, are his alter ego that takes the central place in his
paintings, representing finiteness within infinity. The colors and patterns of
butterflies are also infinite. The artist shows infinity within infinity. The
small size does not weaken the infinity. Moon¡¯s works maintain consistent
strength and density regardless of the size. All of the round canvases in this
exhibition have a symbolic effect on their own, unlike neutral, rectangular
canvases. His paintings have a sound within silence, like movement within
stillness. Both the square canvases in his early days and the more recent round
ones are perhaps like the CD he once made for ¡®fun¡¯ as a music aficionado.
His handmade CD, which you can imagine
seeing in a record store, is a product of simulation without reference, just
like his paintings. Both the round and square canvases were used only for
unique cases as an icon, rather as a general frame, throughout the history of
art. Music discs turn time into space and material while providing mesmerizing
experience to music lovers. Round and square frames have symmetrical stability
and represent perfection. In the history of art or alchemy, we often see
circles encasing a square or symbols representing a perfect human being. Our
desire for perfection may be attributed to various sources, such as religion
and technology, but, fundamentally, it is related to aesthetic experience. Even
dictators were immersed in such aesthetic experience. It provokes the desire
for material possession and, that is why, CDs are still available even when
digital music became the norm.
In Moon¡¯s paintings, the round disks and
square frames that contain the disks symbolize the perfect time and space that
spurs qualitative leap of the time and space that is otherwise meaningless. The
images on a circle or square create unique synesthetic experience based on
image and music. The round frame is a multi-layered symbol of the sky, spirit,
and ego. While the butterfly is the artist¡¯s alter ego, it represents another
ego within his ego. It pursues perfection, like idea. Siobhan Roberts
suggested, in the book [King of Infinite Space], which centers around the life
of a geometrician, Plato is the successor of Pythagoras who believed that all
things are generated from numbers. Plato, who said ¡®God always applies the
principles of geometry,¡¯ noted circle, sphere, square, and cube as ideal
geometrical forms. They were believed to exist on a higher level of the world,
apart from the physical reality.
The circle and square frames in Moon¡¯s
paintings represent logical rigor and absolute purity. The butterflies combine
imitation and original idea, and the images carved on the ceramic or bronze
ware and the round frame surrounding them are all symbolic. Ernst Cassirer, in [Concept symbol format in
the structure of the humanities], suggested we are not surrounded by the
nature, but, rather, that we are living in the cultural world constructed by
our perception and this cultural world is a system of various symbolic forms
consisting of certain rules of creation. When we view Moon¡¯s paintings based on
the concept of symbols defined by Cassirer, sensual objects, including both the
nature (butterfly, sky) and the artificial (ceramic ware, bronze ware) obtain
spiritual and universal nature and the spiritual advances toward the sensual
world through symbols. It is the symbols that bridge the nature, which has been
destroyed in the modern era, and art. In Moon¡¯s paintings, technology is also
included in this bridge.
However, regardless of his past history,
Moon is now a painter who paints with oil or acrylic paints on a canvas.
Artists deal with infinity in different ways than philosophers or scientists
do. The philosophers Deleuze and Guattari, in their book ¡®What is Philosophy?,¡¯
argued art is also reasoning process like philosophy and science, but through
emotion and perception. According to them, between science and philosophy and
art are networks woven with infinite correspondences. Each concept is at the
center of vibration, in their relationship to other concepts. For that reason,
the whole resonates, rather than occurring in a series or being consistent with
one another, just like Moon who attempts to create resonance through
visible/invisible pulses and the cracks he makes on the canvas surface. Deleuze
and Guattari viewed the uniqueness of art lies in restoring infinity through
finiteness. Art has different methods than philosophy or science. According to
these philosophers, philosophy attempts to save infinity by applying
consistency to infinity. And science, by contrast, gives up on infinity in
order to obtain instructional relationships.
However, art attempts to create finiteness
that restores infinity. In Moon¡¯s paintings, we find the ¡®composition that
returns infinity¡¯ conceptualize by Deleuze and Guattari, as shown in the
surface of the round canvas and butterfly and the relationship network of
various patterns that are arranged in strange ways. In his paintings, space is
dense with different patterns and subtle stains, but the void (negative space)
is essential. It places distance from the possibility of turning the artwork
into a finite formal system under the name of perfection. Here, movement takes
place not only between visually similar frames and icons, but also between
multi-layered symbols. The symbols are not fixed but fluid and resonant. And it
is typified by the concept and shape of ¡®pulse.¡¯ The pulse unfolds on the ego
and the sky, that is, the round canvas. Here, the clear symbol is the idea of
correspondence between the microcosm and macrocosm.
Correspondence is not a chaos of categories
but an alternative reasoning of humans who became distant from the nature. At
this time when the position of humans became more unsettled than ever, we need
to look toward the analogical reasoning. It is also often found in mythology
and in Eastern philosophy. In Moon¡¯s paintings, correspondence unfolds through
reasoning on infinity. Quoting Cusanus, Cassirer sets two forms of relative
infinity that opposes the god, in ¡®The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance
Philosophy.¡¯ One is revealed through the cosmos and the other in human mind. In
the former, infinity is realized by the fact that the space expands endlessly
without spacial limits. Moon¡¯s round canvases in which actual or potential
concentric circles are found show correspondence between microcosm and
macrocosm like in The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy.
According to this book, during Renaissance,
humans were thought to both surround and be surrounded by the cosmos and ego by
the world. In a time of incomplete fragments, holistic thinking is necessary
more than anything else. Science and technology that improves productivity
through extreme division of labor, which is the most predominant means of
domination, diminishes humans. They are irrelevant to humanism, in both
positive and negative ways. To be sure, the hierarchical cosmos of Renaissance
is only possible on a symbolic level in this time, after the scientific
revolution. And the symbolic cosmos emphasizes creation as much as existence.
According to The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy, there are
two distinctive narrative means, i.e., one for the field of existence and the
other for creation. According to Cassirer, strict knowledge exists only in
relation to the permanent, i.e., things that are always identical to themselves
and eternally consistent.
On the other hand, the things that are
limited in time and change in different moments cannot be grasped by knowledge.
Moon¡¯s paintings, which leave a large negative space to accept changes, promote
not only a place of existence but also creation. The round canvas contains blue
sky and changeable reality. Jean Salem, in Acient Atomism, introduced atomists
who argued movement would be impossible if everything is full. According to
him, atomists believed, without void, there is no movement and that the void is
the cause of movement. Here, creation does not mean making something out of
nothing but forming something from debris of the previous world. The simulation
of particles that are created and disappear in Moon¡¯s paintings emphasizes
creation. And the simulated creation is in contrast to representation and
production. His works take the Korean or Eastern background and form, but are
at the meeting point between Eastern and Western philosophy in that they
surround the ego with the nature.
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