[평론]강성훈_The World of Mass and Space Constructed with Copper Lines

By Hong Kyung-han, Art Critic 

I.

Mass is not the only elemental factor included in sculpture. When a sculpture involves space and structure, its sculptural quality becomes obvious. Mass is basically a formative language – the body of a message an artist tries to convey beyond a mere combination of images. And, space can be an invisible stage on which the artist induces the language beyond the mold. Of course, a structure is no more than a bridge linking mass to space. 

As with other sculptures, it can be said Kang Sung Hoon’s work fulfills its function only when these three elements underpinning his work’s sculptural quality breathe together harmoniously and naturally. But it may be hard for us to feel his work’s true flavor only by its own shape: his animal series becomes meaningful as sculpture’s elemental conditions are collated, and any rise of the value of this series is made possible when those conditions sensitively intersect. In this exhibition we can see that his work has different effects depending on how the elemental factors of sculpture are arranged in grids. We can be sure the intervention of space and structure in his work makes his forms more brilliant, or remain in a common depiction rather than be simply what the form contains. 

In his 2010 solo show at the Insa Art Center under the title Windymal (a compound word of windy and animal) for example, mass appeared concise and perceptible. In this exhibition his sculptures had a structure in which a sense of weight deriving the mass of metal and lines maintaining form extended to space. The three factors went hand in hand, staying in efficient harmony. If one of them was omitted however, his works were subordinated to motifs like ‘animal’ and ‘wind’. And so we may predict that we might have difficulty in finding any directing point in his work: we need to study space and structure underpinning mass, deviating from the regulations of images that form offers. And so, we can read his work’s trueconnotations. 

II.

As mentioned above, we mostly focus on form when discussing Kang’s work. We often fix our eyes to perceptible codes such as the ‘systemized langue’ of tiger, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, seal, lamb, or elephant. His animals are different from others due to aspects aside from meaning as mass: the animals he has chosen are not merely represented: they are interpreted as ‘mammals,’ part of the vertebrates we humans belong to. They live a life identical to ours in that they live in their own society involving cutthroat competition. The curves of copper lines spreading into space, as if fluttering, are symbolic of self-portraits of those who reiterate progress and pause, while their dynamic motions and velocity force us who live a hectic life amid contradiction and anxiety to coexist within peace. 

However, we can see his work’s artistry and its greater density when oppressing our desire to categorize his forms as ‘animals’. That is, depart from the limit of fixed outer appearance through study of the modeling elements and principles shaping beauty. Significant here is not the motifs such as wind and animal but space and structure. All of his pieces featuring animals are actually marked by disparity between the inside and outside of forms in space. This is proved by his work’s unique aspect, constructing form by taking space as a stage and replacing emptying with filling. A proper example is an enormous ‘bull’ represented among typical works on display at the exhibition.

A robust bull Kang fashioned with thin copper wire is hollow inside unlike its imposing outer appearance. There are many hollow spaces through which the wind may come in and out. However, ‘loose solidity’ brings forth movement, rhythm, and speed, stimulating imagination. This is intangible and abstract, but can be understood as a device to construct his formative language. To the contrary, a completed sculpture appears real, moving beyond abstraction. (This aspect is also his work’s inner feature.) His finished sculpture can be regarded as an outgrowth of the conflation of yang with yin, realism with abstraction: defining Kang’s works as images borrowed from the form of ‘bull’ and ‘elephant’ and as a trace of wind here is insufficient.

III.

Another factor we have to discuss in connection with Kang’s work is the effective use of (extremely labor-intensive) lines whirling around immaterial space. As is widely known, his labor is in an aspect to be directly associated with his pieces, entirely dominating their surroundings (place or space itself). Space lets lines flutter like a ribbon flows, and assures his form’s identity. The efficiency of lines related to the breath of a space is an absolute element distinguishable from others. 

Kang empties almost all relevant spaces except for parts of the frame that makes his animals look sculptural. To this, the visibility of a specific thing becomes conspicuous with lines, as in drawing. The lines, an elemental factor completing form, operate as a device to complete any universal understanding of animals and implications of space. Interesting here is lines underline implication when they infiltrate space: implication rather works as a catalyst to expand reality by capturing invisible space. Viewers are thus granted material perception with reality constructed by lines, and implication is internalized by reading breath with space, undergoing an overall resonance. Some recollects imaginative lines in unconsciousness through this implication, with or against their will. Intriguing is Kang’s lines are, they are after all a substitute of his consciousness. As the German philosopher Edmund Husserl argued, “All consciousness is consciousness of something,” and for Kang lines are a determination of what he wants to express (naturally), hinting at his working attitude of collecting and unifying his experience. That is to say, ‘a state of consciousness’ here is transferred to ‘consciousness of a state’. If ‘a state of consciousness’ refers to perception, feeling, or impression, ‘consciousness of a state’ can be defined as consciousness of orientation to some purpose or direction. Kang’s work thus starts from a state of already constructed behavior, and aims to attain line and space as an aesthetic operation determining a certain coordinate. His figurative sculpture was created with this from this, and the sculpture arouses a resonance with a new space, departing from its animal image as this inhabits a space, and has a link with the space.

 

IV.

His works reconstructed into enormous forms combining thin metal wire are aggregations of his consciousness completing an aesthetic sense. They mainly concern animals, but undoubtedly reflect his perception of an external world, his inner emotion inhabiting the world, and his individual idea and life projected into inside a metallic structure. Such reflections give rise to a structure between medium and space, displaying established reality and abstractness simultaneously as sculptural pieces that come into being through long, careful labor and calculation. These works exhibited at this invitational art show display aspects comparable to those in his 2010 exhibition. 

Nevertheless, his works are not always figurative. Something figurative probably appears interesting, feels comfortable, and can be descriptive and communicative with any theme, but if one depends so much on this, one may meet limitation. (This is proved by many who judge only with visual, physical form, and regard this only as the problem of material and form.) 

Desirable in his future work is that he keep distance from the sculptural mode dependent on the convention of reality; that is, representing outer appearance of a visible world - as Jacques Derrida points out, it is impossible to escape from representation, so keeping distance here means self-conscious awakening toward representation and destruction and recreation of realism, not demolition or domination of realism – and that his work take a great step forward by embracing the figural. It may be wiser that he applies new concern for line and space to his work, and exploit line, the element that could be the most salient feature and merit of his work, as a means to engender diverse forms. Although a realistic coexistence of two contrasting elements, space and matter is positive in his work, the work of giving inner spirituality or breath to his work could be much more meaningful. I think he can meet this demand, considering his artistic ability and the fact that he has more remarkable senses than technique, and has sufficient will and possibility for change.

작가 홈페이지 : http://kangsunghoon.kr/

강성훈, 조각가 강성훈