CHO WONKANG : ART WITHOUT EXCUSES: SEOUL

 

Ko Yeonsoo (art critic)

 

The thin colorful lines weaved horizontally and vertically together, sometimes loosely and other times tightly, create a special effect. These paintings, some drawn on canvases and others installed freely on the walls of the exhibition hall beyond any boundaries, are the works of Cho Won-gang.The numerous plastic lines are not lines drawn nor printed on 2D surfaces. They are lines installed using a 3D pen.

 

The characters, animals and objects in these 2D paintings which feature texturally well-defined spaces and lines, are positioned either individually or in groups, exactly according to the artist's intention. The paintings show scenes of everyday life that are nothing special or peculiar but they arouse curiosity because the backgrounds which could provide explanations to the central subjects are omitted. These flat paintings which thin layers of 3D lines woven together also show very subtle shades when illuminated and this adds volume and 3D matière and consequently, makes each subject in the paintings rich. 

 

 

The "Ways of Seeing" series Cho made from 2017 to 2020 captures the scenes of an art museum in New York. We see people looking around the art museum that is filled with famous artworks but the subjects and mood of the space in his paintings seem somewhat odd. There are George Segal sculptures that seem to be immersed in deep thought sitting on a bench in the middle of people who are either casually walking by or taking pictures. In one painting, rough and sharp-looking Giacometti sculptures are ghostly wandering through people. There are also painting that seem to be trying to tell us something. For example, in the middle of old, deteriorated sculptures, a woman is seen sitting down on the floor and drawing something and in another painting, a man is seen drawing something in front of a head sculpture. The Jeff Koon's balloon dog that's floating boldly in the middle of a crowd is the main character in one painting and it pops out of the painting while being harmonious within the crowd just like the dogs we've seen in Cho's paintings in the past. We can also experience Cho's playful and unconventional ways of seeing things in his work. The people who are observing art are so blurry that they only serve as a background. Meanwhile, the artworks stand out strikingly as if they're right in front us.

 

Replacing this relationship between the artworks and audience we believe to be normal, intentionally mixing the subjects and creating a specific distance between artworks and audience is Cho's way of seeing things in a new perspective. Instead of placing subjects in the conventional and balanced audience-centered perspective, Cho intentionally misplaces and subverts what is believed to be the center. The elements added using a 3D pen are overlapped and variably scattered without creating any vanishing point. The characters and objects in his paintings are parts of an omnibus but at the same time, they create completely new stories by themselves individually.

 

In his oil paintings, the subjects seem to create gaps and relationships with one another according to the perspectives he set. Meanwhile, in the works he has created on the walls using a 3D pen, there seems to be no center nor hierarchyin the relationships among the subjects. Instead of dramatically emphasizing a topic or narrative, he simply scatters the subjects and restructures those relationships among the subjects. Cho's oil painting of two men staring up at Degas's Little Dancer behind the sculpture, captures Cho's unique perspective and point of view.

 

The title of the series "Ways of Seeing" is the way Cho works. It's how he sees, selects and model the things in our world. The title requires no explanations and is clear enough for us to understand and empathize with his perspective. 

The "Ways of Seeing" series is a representation of his perspective but it also includes the relationships among the characters and artworks in his paintings and how they see one another.By placing multiple perspectives within a frame or out of the frame, Cho removes the center and shows that there is always someone observing the artworks. People who go to art museums to see the artworks take pictures to record that they were there at the museum. Cho who takes pictures of those people and turns those pictures into artworks may also be trying to record that he himself was also there at the museum.And this nostalgic sentiment that all of his works give off is the reason why his perspective is so persuasive.

 

Visual arts which are representations of the world in artists' perspectives, do not require much explanations. Looking at a visual product, if we need so much explanations and different types of communication to understand what the creator's intentions were, would that product really be a visual art? Communicating by making something invisible into a tangible thing or reinterpreting universally agreed customs or perspectives to make people ponder about them were made possible because of art and they were in fact a major purpose of art. Of course, artworks that show very littles clues and discussed with excessive interpretations and stories are not always good and historically important artworks have always been the ones that are persuasive.

 

One of the most fascinating functions of art is that the artists subtly delivers us messages through their work and the audience get to complete their work by filling in the gaps and finding solutions or meanings. This elegant form of communication is what makes art important. The audience is not solely responsible for finding the stories behind artworks. The artists plan and have authority over those stories and only when the audience completely accepts and understands the artists' unique and specific intentions, the knowledge and experiences of everyone involved including the artists and the audience could sprout and make the artworks fully blossom. And in that sense, the artistic value of Cho's work and artworks is so evident. Cho doesn't carelessly and aggressively throw his work at us telling us to interpret his work by ourselves. By showing his ways of seeing things, he persuades us gently, delicately, intelligently and elegantly to think about what art really is fundamentally. Cho's physically vast artworks are not only visually refreshing but metaphorically and sensitively, they also allow us to ponder over art.

 

Looking at his work including the series from this exhibition, Cho is an artist who is very good at drawing. This might sound like an odd or somewhat disrespectful thing to say to an artist who has been drawing for a very long time but what I mean is because his work is unique, powerful and persuasive, I have no other expression to say than to say he is very good at drawing.

 

These days, we see a lot of artists cleverly expressing their thoughts and ideas using the properties of art media. However, too many artworks that are only superficially satisfying to the eye and mind rather than having a core essence, seem to appear and disappear so quickly that we can't help but feel empty and a stronger thirst for art. And this is why Cho's work is a breath of fresh air. The concept called "Beyond" in his work not only means going from canvases to walls and the physical increase in the sizes of his paintings but it also symbolizes Cho's intention to break away from a specific framework of positions of or relationships among the artworks, the audience and himself. In some way, it might have been easier for him to use this new art medium because it's still very new in the world of visual arts. Also, although there is a close link between an art medium and an artist and artists become skilled at handling specific medium, I don't think Cho would be permanently identified with this medium. This new medium has thankfully enabled him to expand his perspectives and thoughts beyond conventional relationships and frameworks but I believe Cho will continue to search for new tools, materials and media for his work. Who knows? Maybe his touches combined with materials with novel properties we could not possibly imagine right now will give birth to new art works. And considering that Cho who has already worked with a variety of different media, continues to talk excitedly about the "rich touches" in working with new media, I cannot help but to look forward what his work would be like in the future.

 

This anticipation not only comes from how special and new the media or materials Cho would be working with in the future but also from how he would use those media and materials in such unexpected ways to introduce us new artistic perspectives. And that is why I want to focus more on his ways of seeing things than the physical media he works with. And one thing is for sure. What eases my mind and helps me stop asking whether there is anything left to explore in visual arts is his concise and resolute words and actions.