A Piece of Red Installation

Anti-Standard ​ In order for capitalism to exert control, to prevent error and to maximize benefit, everything including humans, are forced to become tools. In doing so, this every ‘tool’ becomes part of the ‘standard’, the numerical and conceptual framework created within a capitalist system. Multiple issues within society today spring from this standard and I intend to question it and suggest an alternative. ​I continue to search for a pure image, uncontaminated by the standardized images of the world which have been mathematically defined since the time of Descartes. As a starting point for my ideas, I defined firstly that “humans are imperfect” and therefore secondly, “Image is imperfect.” The human ‘Blind Spot’ negates our ability to form a complete view and we must rely on both eyes supporting each other to create unhindered vision. Nor are humans able to freeze time, like a camera. Finally, humans cannot limit images conjured up from our thoughts. All of this, taken together, is the exact opposite of a fixed painting hanging on a white wall. ​I have cut the complete form of a rectangular frame and connected the pieces to form an imperfect shape and I have woven a net with fishing line within the frame. From the resulting shape, I cut the images into pieces like a puzzle and hung the fragmented images from the frame with fishing line as if the images had fallen from it. Since the image pieces are fixed only loosely, they can be stirred by a mild breath or even a gesture. This is living movement completely different from the continuous still images seen in a movie. The back of the work, which is normally unseen, reveals the structure and the result of my labor. ​Since the most fundamental image element, the pixel, has, I suggest, an irreplaceable form, a vague sense of time and unpredictable movement, it should be seen as a useless and imperfect form, from a purely mechanical perspective. The resulting mutually supportive pattern is essentially different from the mere accumulation of industrial components in which the sum of the parts can only ever be equal to one fixed total. ​From a capitalist orientation, efficiency is paramount and is clearly male centered. ​From this a perspective, females, who have periods, pregnancy and childbirth, are inefficient beings who are subject to unexpected events (As the glitch character Vanellope in the Wreck-It Ralph who is rejected by her peer racers). I have embraced this ‘inefficiency’ as an alternative expression of femininity. My work is synonymous with the way paintings and women were controlled by men through history. This embrace is not about rejecting the conventional standard of beauty to make an image ugly. It is meant rather as a means of preventing it from being objectified. Why is something not beautiful therefore ugly? If we think in this way, then we are still caught in the framework of men. Escaping from that control does not mean chaos, but rather a new order, new world. ​What is broken in my work is not simply the surface material but all kinds of standardized norms that have controlled images to date. I wish to offer to the world an uncontaminated image, one most true to an object, before that object (or the world) was imagined solely from a male-centered viewpoint. For people today, “imperfection” is the new anomaly. By means of liberating ourselves from control (through deconstruction), we can recover our purity of identity and open infinite possibilities. ​ April 2017, Yeowoon Kim www.yeowoonkim.com

Installation:Photo on Wood

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:13.2 W x 21.3 H x 11.8 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.