Exhibition Information

(출처= 성곡미술관)

			Changwon Lee’s art works are composed of the juxtaposition and tension between two parallel worlds. Among the two worlds, one is the world of reality, where images are derived from non-artistic objects that we commonly encounter in our daily lives. For example, in the Image of Reflection series, several narrow white shelves are lined up at regular intervals like window shades with coffee powder and dried tea leaves scattered on top, which make up the primary world. When the lighting strikes the tea leaves of varying heights and shapes, their unfamiliar silhouettes transform into a secondary world consisting of monumental landscapes. In other words, there is no formative or fundamental similarity between the primary world designed to create images and the secondary world created as a result, which is where Lee’s artistic intention intervenes between these two parallel worlds.

Lee emphasizes the discrepancy between the model and the image with the aim to maintain the maximum distance between these two parallel worlds. This constitutes an extremely unconventional proposition, as the traditional notion of a model and its image considers them to be as close and identical to each other as possible, representing the relationship between a real object and its shadow. In other words, art generally seeks to minimize the distance between the two, as though mediated by a mirror. However, Lee finds another way to use mirrors, a symbol of art, by allowing it to function as a separator instead. In his artistic realm, the hierarchy between the original and its copy disappears, and new entities are derived from the original, a phenomenon that can also be observed in modern society.

Lee’s revelation of the parallel world, rejecting the preconception that one thing cannot become another and only perpetuates itself, becomes the source of the power and joy of ultimate creation in his artistic universe.

This exhibition is part of a series of large-scale mid-career retrospectives for established Korean artists, which aims to present an opportunity to experience the artistic world of Changwon Lee, who underlines the discrepancy between models and images, ranging from the works produced in early 2000s during his time studying in Germany to the present. We hope that witnessing Lee’s unconventional method of interpretation may also allow visitors to contribute to the creation of something new.