Intended Discrepancy
By Roh Young-duk (Aesthete)
Kim Hyung-joo's new work, "Marshmallow on the Ground," immediately captures attention with its graceful and charming feel, along with a decorative beauty that resembles a pattern. When encountering the repetition and regularity arranged like a pattern, a touch of minimalism can be discerned, and in cases where two-tone colors are used, a slight playfulness is felt, perhaps due to a certain rhythm.
However, upon prolonged and close observation, something more than just slender and delicate sculptural forms is perceived. This becomes apparent when viewing all the works, and when the scattered, dot-like elements of similar size are recognized as the stubble of cut rice stalks. The white ellipses treated as empty space, or the sporadically present white masses, are white plastic bales of piled rice straw in the middle of a rice paddy. After threshing the rice, the cut rice straw is mechanically collected and wrapped in plastic to prevent other animals from eating it. The remaining elements are the rice stubble. This is a common sight in our rice paddies and fields after the autumn harvest. This work, which at first glance appears to be merely a design of charming patterns, depicts the post-harvest scene of a rice paddy, symbolizing our food supply.
The artist's message — clearly expressed through her work — includes respect for ecology and life, love for nature, and skepticism about capitalism. The artist's warm and delicate perspective has allowed her to perceive universal issues like nature, civilization, and existence in the often-overlooked sight of a post-harvest rice paddy. One can glimpse the magnitude of the artist's critical awareness underlying her formal expression. While issues such as ecology and critiques of civilization are old and fundamental, which can sometimes feel tiresome, they are increasingly serious problems. When such issues are addressed through art, the expression can easily become cliché or antiquated. What kind of sculptural form should be employed to convey messages related to these issues? What is an effective way to deal with large-scale themes?
The artist's choice is simplicity of form and color, and decorative sculpture. The key then becomes overcoming flatness and lightness. To solve this problem, the artist utilizes white space to create an empty-space effect. From a formal perspective, the white space or white masses that create an empty-space effect play the biggest role in this work. The randomly appearing white spaces effectively alleviate monotony. This white, circular empty space subtly harmonizes with the monotonous repetition of the rice roots, achieving excellent decorative beauty.
In fact, decorative beauty can be somewhat inadequate for containing "grand narratives." This is true when the raison d'être of decoration is limited solely to form. If employed only for form, decoration struggles to rise above merely being aesthetically pleasing. Art Nouveau, which briefly drew attention during the Modernist period, is a good example. Art Nouveau paintings were very beautiful to look at, but because they indulged only in aesthetic forms, they became merely pretty art. As a result, they were considered applied arts like crafts, posters, and architectural decoration rather than fine art, were sometimes mistaken for decadence, and short-lived without becoming mainstream. Decorative beauty at a design level, which only provides visual pleasure without depth of content, could not achieve a higher level of artistic accomplishment. This is also a result of disregarding content and clinging only to form.
For decorative beauty to leap beyond merely being aesthetically pleasing, it must serve the work's theme and content, not just be absorbed in visual stimulation. This includes the strategic use of decorative beauty to effectively convey a message. Kim Hyung-joo seeks to transcend the limitations of decorative beauty in this way. The artist's excellence evident in this work is her ability to express themes beyond mere sensual satisfaction with decorative beauty, which can easily end in visual pleasure. In other words, instead of being overly serious, she uses the exact opposite approach, removing any sense of burden. One might call it a counter-intuitive reversal, attempting to treat solemnity and seriousness with restraint and indifference. She exquisitely combines a heavy message with light decorative beauty. This is likely also the reason for simplifying forms and treating colors in faded monotones.
This represents an imbalance between theme and form, or a discrepancy between content and form. The effect of such an intended discrepancy can be far greater than when using orthodox methods. It's the same principle as how the sight of a smiling baby at a funeral, where everyone is weeping in sorrow, actually evokes greater sadness. The cunning(?) and playfulness of the quirky title "Marshmallow" can be understood in the same context. The intention is to make us realize that profound issues gripping the future of all humanity, such as ecology and nature conservation, do not exist in some distinct, specific place commensurate with their weight, but rather lie hidden right around us, here where civilization is advancing, amidst our naturally encountered lives. Just as marshmallows are light, everyday, and commonly encountered products of civilization. From this perspective, the strategy of this work becomes successful the later the audience realizes that the white space is, in fact, large white plastic bales of gathered rice straw.
"In the past, when rice was harvested, we ate the rice, and the rice straw was given to cows. And the scattered grains or straw on the fields were left untouched. That was for the migratory birds. But now, every single strand of rice straw has become a source of income for farmers, which cannot be conceded. The cycle of sharing benefits received from nature and returning them has been broken. Human greed now shares with no nature. ...In the late autumn landscape of rural areas, there are always large white plastic rolls. They were unfamiliar objects to me. But now that I know their true nature, these white plastic masses have become a symbol of the reality where nature is completely swept up and used for economic activity, and an emblem that made me aware of this reality. Marshmallows on the ground are forms symbolizing humanity's insatiable greed. As I pondered the forms for painting, the haystacks wrapped in white plastic, randomly placed in the fields, seemed to gather and conspire. After cutting and arranging them as partial forms on the canvas, they also felt like another persona or human body created by humans. Perhaps the marshmallows scattered randomly in the fields felt like an artificially placed collective, like people?" - From an interview with artist Kim Hyung-joo
Kim Hyung-joo's works thus contain love for nature, an indictment of the selfishness of civilization, and affection for life itself. The artist possesses a philosophical and religious mindset and expresses universal human values. This tendency has been consistently maintained in her past works.
In the midst of contemporary art, which often relies on novelty by employing unusual materials or eccentric techniques, Kim Hyung-joo adheres to traditional content aesthetics. Although it might seem somewhat rigid at first glance, her creative attitude is rather bold in that she prioritizes insight into deep and fundamental issues and emphasizes message delivery, rather than clinging to formal beauty. The artist's stance, critical awareness, and the philosophical nature of her work themes seem likely to continue. If so, I am interested in her methods of expression. If she intends to maintain an unbalanced approach by employing decorative beauty in the future, the artist's task becomes clear. In that case, the aesthetic success will depend on how she manages to creatively invent a distinctive decorative beauty that can express grand narratives. But will she still utilize decorative beauty? I am curious about the artist's next work.
