Exhibition Information

HWANG GYUTAE_PIXEL

HWANG GYUTAE Exhibition View

HWANG GYUTAE Exhibition View

HWANG GYUTAE Exhibition View

			Seoul l Samcheong will hold a personal exhibition of "Pixel of Pixel" by Hwang Gyu-tae (b.1938) who is a pioneer and exceptional writer of avant-garde photography in Korea from March 7 to April 21, 2019. This exhibition focuses on the recent fruits of the Pixel series, which have been ongoing since the 1990s, by a senior writer who has freely sought experimentation and innovation rather than compromise on alcohol and fashion since the early 1960s.
Since his debut, Hwang has been named a problem writer by various attempts at the forefront of experimental photography, such as burning film, borrowing and synthesis, analog sketch and double exposure, for example, in the 1960s. Since then, interest in digital images, which began in the 1980s, has led to various experiments such as digital montage, collage and synthesis. At the end of the long process, the author found in digital images a 'pixel' which refers to the smallest unit of the image, the tiny dots shaped like squares, and was buried in the infinite possibilities and visual entertainment of the geometric images. That's how the Pixel Series began.
Hwang Kyu-tae's "Pixel" series basically lacks or significantly lacks the basic photography process. Instead, "choice" and "extension" exist. In other words, rather than taking pictures of objects with a camera and letting them appear on the screen, his main focus is to select images and monitors that already exist for other purposes, to persistently discover, record, and materialize various shapes and colors of pixels that appear when magnified. The value of "indexability," the main issue of traditional photography in its department, becomes scarce, and the characteristics of the method of "choice" and "extension" make the results derived from the original image infinite. Whether to look at the whole process in photographs or not is not the key to the proposal. "I didn't make it, I just chose pixels," as his all-round works need to look a little wider from the perspective of image research, not from the traditional category of art or stylistic approaches.
Another interesting point to look at is the link between the Pixel series, which the author claims, and Russian artist Kazimir Malevich. By discovering similarities with the extreme minimal hard-edge works by Malevich himself in the electronic images he finds, he discusses again the philosophy of absolutism's shaping in the digital age beyond the 100-year gap. Like Malevich's absolutist painting, which has reached the basic form of square, circle, etc. and pure composition of color alone, the world of minimal abstract color of pixels that have been extended from the original image repeatedly presents the infinite time and space of possible images in the era of digital images and explores pure reasoning. In this context, the author refers to his work as a 'post hard edge.' About 20 years after the author started the Pixel series, I hope that the exhibition, which selected the latest two years of condensed work with intense agony, will serve as an opportunity to reflect on the identity and direction of images in contemporary digital civilization.