+_+soojungchoi+_+

No Man's Land - Space is not enough

2010-08-20T13:22:00.000-07:00

Space is not enough
-Christiane Opitz

On Soo Jung Choi’s exhibition No Man’s Land

The space seems bigger than its actual dimensions: much bigger than is conceivable for an area delimited by architecture with walls, floor and ceiling. It grows beyond itself, opening up and apparently leaving all restrictions behind. In Soo Jung Choi’s exhibition in the Künstlerhaus, the walls become transparent surfaces and the viewer believes that he can see right through them. On each of two areas of wall, facing one another, the artist has hung a large-format painting on canvas. Both works from her cycle Treasure Island (Bait I and Bait II, 2010) show all kinds of objects floating in black space, converging towards the centre of the picture. Here, one can see mysterious patterns and structures, flowers, shoes, balls, animals, mushroom-like growths and figures. Their flashy colours make them stand out in the dark, starry sky as if they themselves were planets, spaceships or remnants of a world that has long ceased to exist. Some of these things remain non-concrete, abstract, open to interpretation, while others are clear references, like the round-arched entry – a tiny detail in this work measuring two by two metres – that reveals a view through onto a tiled floor and cloistered walkway: here, Choi plays with a space-within-a-space phenomenon. After looking at the work for some time, it almost seems as if the hundreds of small objects were amassed in a ball of matter at the centre due to an increase in gravity, before being sucked into an imaginary black hole.

But the Korean artist is not satisfied with opening up the surface of the canvas by painterly means alone. Choi pierces the canvases of the Treasure Island pictures several times with needle and thread as well, so that – in addition to the painted details – parts of the surface are also inhabited by elaborately sewn textile clusters. It is also a physical matter, inasmuch as she perforates the canvas and so destroys the illusionary level of the image, penetrating into the “infinite depths” behind the painting. In addition – and here the fantastic ambivalence of Choi’s works becomes obvious – with this embroidery she also emphasises the flat surface and so draws our attention back from the distance into two-dimensionality.

The other pictures in the exhibition space, which the artist’s title defines as a No Man’s Land, are characterised by net-like structures rather than the converging agglomerations of Treasure Island. In the two-part work Floccinaucinihilipilification (Net 1 and Net 2, 2010), everyday objects also appear, not really matching the violet-white cloud structures in the background and thus suggestive of foreign bodies. There is an obvious accumulation of recurrent motifs – flowers, skeletons, birds, seats of all kinds, trees, harlequins and soldiers –, which appear at irregular intervals and therefore seem to follow a mysterious, mathematical logic. The fact that the figures are separated from their original context makes them empty, hollowed out, reduced to symbols and yet with no meaning at all. It is a deliberate strategy to eliminate everything that makes sense, and literally pull the rug (of interpretation) from under the viewer’s feet. The 32-year-old artist, who sees herself as the producer of visual systems rather than as a painter, does not reveal the sources of her ideas for paintings or explain how the objects function in relation to each other. She is prepared to admit that she has encountered many of the artefacts depicted in the paintings – vases, cases or statues, for example – in historical museums in Berlin and elsewhere in Germany. They lend a deceptive stability to the dreamlike network of objects that is outlined in front of a vague sky; a stability suggested by the continuity of those icons produced by the hand of man.

The concept of the net that the artist spins here is exciting primarily because of its openness to interpretation. On the one hand, of course, the net is a means to capture something; it will let through objects of differing sizes according to the width of its mesh and so it functions as a filter or a sieve. But something always gets caught in it as well – after all, that is what it was invented for. The philosophers Deleuze and Guattari investigated the network or root structure as a post-structural model. Their concept of rhizomatics has been incorporated into many discourses on the theory of science, media philosophy, and cultural science. To put it briefly, because the rhizome continually forms new ramifications – and has to be constantly re-knotted like a net as a result – dichotomies are no longer applicable as a means of explaining reality. There is tremendous potential, not only political, inherent in this. Not least, today “the Net” is a synonym of the Internet – that is, of global linking of information and communications, like the much-discussed “social networks” as well. The artist includes all these considerations in her work. But she is also fascinated by the semi-permeable structure of the net: as a delicate, airy construction that needs to be firm and stable but simultaneously open enough to capture its prey – perhaps animals, but maybe ideas, thoughts or philosophical deliberations as well. In the middle of the exhibition, therefore, there is a knotted net, the shadow contours of which are also projected onto the floor of the exhibition space by the fall of light. The additional title for her Treasure Island works, Bait, helps Choi to indicate that she is not concerned with romantic treasure seeking in her “no man’s land”, but with hunting – if not in a lethal sense. What she intends, far more, is a kind of metaphysical game that develops between the artist, the viewer and the work; a game about perception and the questioning of boundaries. Naturally, the latter theme also has political aspects in Choi’s work; after all, she is South Korean and grew up in a divided country.

Translated from the German by Lucinda Rennison

text for the group show 're-entry'

2010-04-30T12:49:00.000-07:00

„Fundstücke des Alltags“ nennt die koreanische Künstlerin Soo Jung Choi die Gegenstände, die ihr im Alltag begegnen und mit denen sie en Detail ihre großflächigen Leinwände bevölkert. Wie Wimmelbilder scheinen die Arbeiten auf den ersten Blick zusammenhanglos collagiert und bilden doch einen eigenen Raum. Farbgebung und Motivwiederholung deuten allerdings auf eine durchdachte, konstruierte Struktur hin, die das Bild zu einer stimmigen Komposition machen. Den bereits abstrahierten Darstellungen der Objekte und Dinge aus ihrer Lebenswelt fügt Soo Jung Choi Materialien (Stoff, Fäden) hinzu, die wie bei Niedziolka auf die Dinglichkeit der Wirklichkeit (zurück-) verweisen und Verbindungen zwischen der Wirklichkeit und der Vorstellungswelt schaffen.

Holle Rauser

Loop Raum fur aktuelle kunst and artists

No Man's Land

2010-03-12T22:21:00.000-08:00

Net 1, 3m*2m, acrylic on canvas, 2010

Christiane Opitz
Space is not enough
Über Soo Jung Chois Ausstellung No Man’s Land

Der Raum wirkt größer als seine tatsächlichen Begrenzungen. Viel größer als ein durch Architektur beschränkter Bereich mit Wänden, Boden, Decke sein kann. Er wächst über sich hinaus, öffnet sich, scheint seine Begrenzungen hinter sich zu lassen. In Soo Jung Chois Ausstellung im Künstlerhaus werden die Wände zu transparenten Oberflächen, durch die man hindurch zu sehen glaubt. An zwei einander gegenüber stehenden Wandflächen hat die Künstlerin je zwei großformatige Malereien auf Leinwand montiert. Auf beiden Arbeiten aus ihrem Werkzyklus Treasure Island (Bait I und Bait II, 2010) treiben allerlei Dinge im schwarzen All und verdichten sich zur Bildmitte hin. Rätselhafte Muster und Strukturen, Blumen, Schuhe, Bälle, Tiere, pilzartige Gewächse und Figuren sind da zu sehen, die durch ihre schrille Farbigkeit aus dem dunklen Sternenhimmel hervorstechen, als wären sie selbst Planeten, Raumschiffe oder Überbleibsel aus einer längst untergegangenen Welt. Manche dieser Dinge bleiben unkonkret, abstrakt, deutungsoffen, während andere deutliche Verweise darstellen, beispielsweise jener Rundbogendurchgang – ein winziges Detail in der zwei mal zwei Meter großen Arbeit –, der den Blick auf einen gekachelten Boden und einen Säulengang freigibt: Choi spielt hier mit einem Raum-im-Raum-Phänomen. Bei längerer Betrachtung der Arbeit ist es fast so, als würden da Hunderte kleiner Dinge aufgrund erhöhter Gravitation im Zentrum als Materiekugel gebündelt, bevor sie in ein imaginäres schwarzes Loch hinein gesogen werden.

Die Fläche der Leinwand allein durch malerische Mittel aufzubrechen wäre der koreanischen Künstlerin jedoch nicht genug. So hat Choi die Leinwände der Treasure Island-Bilder mehrfach mit Nadel und Faden durchstochen, so dass neben den gemalten Details auch aufwendig genähte Stoff-Cluster Teile der Oberfläche besiedeln. Sie ist also auch physisch, indem sie die Leinwand durchstößt und damit die illusionäre Bildebene bricht, in „unendliche Weiten“ hinter der Leinwand vorgedrungen. Zudem – und hier wird die fantastische Ambivalenz der Arbeiten Chois deutlich – betont sie mit der Stickerei doch auch die Fläche und holt so den Blick aus der Ferne zurück in die Zweidimensionalität.

Die anderen Bilder im Ausstellungsraum, den die Künstlerin per Titel zum No Man’s Land erkoren hat, sind im Gegensatz zur konzentrierten Ballung auf Treasure Island eher durch netzartige Strukturen gekennzeichnet. Auch auf der zweiteiligen Arbeit Floccinaucinihilipilification (Net 1und Net 2, 2010) tauchen alltägliche Dinge auf, die zu den violett-weißen Wolkenstrukturen im Hintergrund nicht recht passen wollen und wie Fremdkörper wirken. Auffällig ist die Häufung wiederkehrender Motive – Blumen, Skelette, Vögel, Sitzgelegenheiten aller Art, Bäume, Harlekine, Soldaten –, die in unregelmäßigen Abständen auftauchen, dabei aber einer geheimen, mathematischen Logik zu folgen scheinen. Durch die Loslösung aus ihrem ursprünglichen Kontext werden die Zeichen leer, ausgehöhlt, auf Symbole ohne jegliche Bedeutung reduziert. Eine beabsichtigte Strategie, um alles, was Sinn macht, zu eliminieren und um dem Betrachter im wahrsten Sinn des Wortes den (Interpretations-)Boden unter den Füßen wegzureißen. Die 32-Jährige, die sich eher als „Produzentin von Bildersystemen“ denn als Malerin versteht, gibt weder die Quellen ihrer Bildideen preis, noch erklärt sie, wie die Dinge untereinander und zueinander funktionieren. Viele der auf den Bildern dargestellten Artefakte – etwa Vasen, Gefäße oder Statuen – sind ihr, so viel verrät sie, in historischen Museen in Berlin und anderswo in Deutschland begegnet. Sie verleihen dem traumhaften Netz aus Objekten, das sich vor einem vagen Himmel abzeichnet, trügerische Stabilität, die durch die Beständigkeit jener von Menschen gefertigten Ikonen suggeriert wird.

Die Idee des Netzes, die die Künstlerin hier entspinnt, ist spannend vor allem angesichts der Deutungsoffenheit. Zum einen ist dieses Gebilde ja ein Mittel zum Einfangen von Etwas, das je nach Maschenformat unterschiedlich große Dinge hindurch lässt und somit als Filter oder Sieb funktioniert. Aber es bleibt eben auch etwas darin hängen – hierfür wurde es schließlich erfunden. Die Philosophen Deleuze und Guattari haben sich mit der Netz- beziehungsweise Wurzelstruktur als poststrukturalistischem Model beschäftigt. Ihr Konzept der Rhizomatik ging in zahlreiche wissenschaftstheoretische, medienphilosophische und kulturwissenschaftliche Diskurse ein. Da das Rhizom immer neue Verästellungen ausbildet – und somit wie ein Netz immer wieder neu zu knüpfen ist – können, kurz gesagt, Dichotomien zur Erklärung des Wirklichen nicht länger greifen – was nicht nur in politischer Hinsicht ein enormes Potenzial birgt. Nicht zuletzt ist „das Netz“ heute ein Synonym fürs Internet, also für die globale Informations- und Kommunikationsverknüpfung wie zum Beispiel auch die vieldiskutierten „social networks“. Die Künstlerin bezieht all diese Überlegungen in ihre Arbeit mit ein. Sie ist aber auch von der halbdurchlässigen Struktur des Netzes fasziniert: Als eine zarte, luftige Konstruktion, die gleichzeitig fest und stabil, aber auch offen genug sein muss, um ihre Beute – vielleicht Tiere, vielleicht aber auch Ideen, Gedanken, philosophische Überlegungen – festzuhalten. Inmitten der Ausstellung findet sich daher ein geknüpftes Netz, das durch Lichteinfall auch als Schattenriss auf dem Boden projiziert wird. Außerdem verweist Choi mit dem zusätzlichen Titel Bait (Köder) für die Treasure Island-Arbeiten darauf, dass es in ihrem „Niemandsland“ nicht um romantische Schatzsuche geht, sondern um Jagd – wenn auch nicht im tödlichen Sinn. Vielmehr ist eine Art metaphysisches Spiel gemeint, das sich zwischen Künstlerin, Betrachter und Werk entwickelt und in dem es um Wahrnehmung und Grenzbefragungen geht. Letztere werden von der Süd-Koreanerin Choi, die ja in einem geteilten Land aufwuchs, selbstverständlich auch unter politischen Aspekten gedacht.

No Man's Land

2010-03-07T09:20:00.000-08:00

No Man's Land

Painting's detail

No Man's Land

2010-03-07T09:15:00.000-08:00

No Man's Land 2010

No Man's Land

2010-03-07T09:01:00.000-08:00

Soo Jung Choi
No Man's Land
15-31 January
Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien gmbh

Invitation Card
(Pixelized Mr. Amundsen in Universe)

SOO JUNG CHOI selects trivial things or their illustrations from various contexts of everyday life and paints copies of them; once they have been separated from any precisely definable context, she introduces them into her large-format acrylics paintings and collages as both structuring elements and artistic depictions. The motifs are lined up, repeated and transformed, whereby specific characteristics or a repeated use of colour gives the breathtakingly diverse painting an almost mathematically stringent foundation. Soo Jung Choi's techniques of painting and collage suggest an affinity to handicraft activities such as weaving, knotting or knitting.
Essentially, the exhibition "No Man's Land" comprises three groups of works: the two-part, large-format work "Floccinaucinihilipilification" is based on a net-like compositional structure that entices the viewer into the painting's labyrinth with a crowd of hundreds of small, colourful motifs, like small bait ingeniously laid out by the artist, and so causes him to become entangled in its 'net'. The second work complex, "Treasure Island", is a two-part, painting collage with pasted-on scraps of cloth, wool or coloured thread; its composition is based on the dot structure of reproductions showing actually existing stellar constellations, which the artist found in an atlas. The presentation is supplemented by four ordinary commercial fishing nets partially lifted from the floor by nylon threads suspended from the ceiling. An almost rectangular space is thus formed and illuminated so that the nets structure is duplicated as a shadow outline on the floor of the exhibition space.

Soo Jung Choi holds a fellowship from the Arts Council Korea and is a guest at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in the context of our International Studio Programme.

Soo Jung Choi - "No Man's Land"
15th January - 31st January 2010, Studio 2
Tuesday - Sunday, 2 - 7 pm
Opening: Thursday, 14th January 2010, from 7 pm

No Man's Land

2010-03-07T08:42:00.000-08:00

Soo Jung Choi
No Man's Land
15-31 January 2010
Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien gmbh

Context of images

SOO JUNG CHOI wählt triviale Dinge oder deren Abbildungen aus verschiedenen Bereichen des alltäglichen Lebens aus, malt diese in Acrylfarbe ab und setzt sie, aus jeglichem Kontext gelöst, in ihren großformatigen Gemälden und Collagen als strukturierende Elemente und bildliche Darstellungen gleichermaßen ein. Die Motive werden aneinander gereiht, wiederholt und abgewandelt, wobei bestimmte Charakteristika oder sich wiederholende Farbgebungen den atemberaubend vielfältigen Gemälden eine mathematisch strenge Struktur zugrunde legen.
Die Ausstellung "No Man's Land" umfasst im wesentlichen drei Werkgruppen: der zweiteiligen Arbeit "Floccinaucinihilipilification" liegt eine netzartige Struktur in der Komposition zugrunde, die den Betrachter mit ihrem Gewimmel von Hunderten kleiner, farbenfroher Motive in das Labyrinth des Bildes hineinlockt und ihn sich in dessen 'Netz' verfangen lässt. Die Struktur des zweiteiligen Werkkomplexes "Treasure Island" hingegen - eine Collage aus Malerei, Stofffetzen und Wollfäden - basiert auf schematischen Abbildungen tatsächlich existierender Sternbilder, die die Künstlerin in einem Atlas gefunden hat. Ergänzt wird die Präsentation durch vier handelsübliche Fischernetze, die an Nylonfäden halb vom Boden hochgezogen, einen annähernd viereckigen Raum bilden und so ausgeleuchtet werden, dass sich die Netzstruktur als Schattenriss auf dem Boden des Ausstellungsraumes dupliziert.

Soo Jung Choi ist Stipendiatin des Arts Council Korea im Rahmen des Internationalen Atelierprogramms.

Soo Jung Choi - "No Man's Land"
15. - 31. Januar 2010, Studio 2
Dienstag - Sonntag, 14 - 19 Uhr
Eröffnung: Donnerstag, 14. Januar 2010, ab 19 Uhr

No Man's Land

2010-03-07T08:23:00.000-08:00

Soo Jung Choi

No Man's Land

15-31 January 2010

Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien gmbh

structure drawing

Parallel World: Twix Painting text by gustav

2009-02-01T04:54:00.000-08:00

SOO JUNG CHOI
Parallel World : Twix Painting
January 16. – 25, 2009
Babel Art Space, Trondheim

The South-Korean multi-artist Soo Jung Choi (b. 1977) has worked in Trondheim from January 1 to 14. The result of the two short weeks of work are the art works exhibited here under the name of Parallel World; Twix Painting. They are the result of Soo Jung’s approach to her environment. In the course of the 14 days long working stint she has eaten Twix chocolate. On the poster: a photo of a reflector disk. A rigid system of crystals. But in the system we also see a breach, a brittleness in the rigid grid. A system based on contrasts rather than balance. This is one of many possible approaches to Parallel World; Twix Painting. For what greater contrast can be imagined than a concrete object like a bar of Twix and an abstract entity like 14 days of work? Through a simple, but curious and striking pun the two get a common denominator. Two weeks/Twix. The idea is reflected in the two blue twin paintings. The X-shape can be guessed at in both of them… Two weeks/ Twin/ Twix/Two X.

A grid of possible links is revealed. Not merely between words and situations. A detail from the surroundings is interweaved with traces of human activity, a remnant from daily chores, be it Soo Jung’s or someone else’s. These analogies cannot be regarded as objective causal links; this is rather about looking at things slantly. She makes something familiar unfamiliar.

Having worked for a couple of days, Soo Jung suddenly finds a closed down and derelict sign-maker’s workshop. This workshop, that other passers-by ignore, becomes her point of departure: a stage set that creates a certain atmosphere, her “dystopian spot”. From this workshop she collects photos, sketches, letters and postcards. This collection is in its turn the result of someone else’s approach to his or her surroundings. A parallel is drawn between her own project and this other person’s approach to his or her surroundings: they are both sign-makers. This other person is exposed, and yet he or she still remains anonymous.

Fragments of this salvage collection can be rediscovered as details in the works where Soo Jung’s approach offers a new meaning in a new context. Water that trickles in between the teeth of a beer top is linked to a metaphor describing days seeping into the year. Instruments for measuring, tools that used to bring about clarification, suddenly accentuate, through their optical qualities, a sense of dizziness. (Underlined by the work title Nausea.) The work of art operates as a neutral space where this linking takes place. The pictures function not only in virtue of themselves; they also engage in an active dialogue with the surroundings. The external conditions of the production are at least as important as the inner structure of the work. The pictures become a filter for Soo Jung’s experience of her surroundings.

So the pictures depend upon connections. Something parallel that takes place on the same premises, perhaps at the same time of the day, but which has had no common denominator until now. Soo Jung Choi’s works seek to make visible such connections, or, to put it in other words: to throw light upon a parallel world.

Gustav Svihus Borgersen, 15.01.2009
Translated by Birgit Kvamme Lundheim

Parallel World: Blindspot

2009-01-25T18:06:00.000-08:00

Blind Spot

January 2009

Parallel World : painting/object

2009-01-22T15:32:00.000-08:00

When it comes to thinking about the real object, it already has its own complicate structure not just its own form but function as well. Also, even a small object, it has its strong force to occupy the space. So, rather than changing the structure like distorting the shape or using it in a different way, I prefer to use it in a correct way in a given condition. I just link the thing with other thing to make sense. In this show, a cup is a cup. sign is a sign. a lighting is a lighting.

However, painting is different. Except minimal condition like frame and picture plane, the structure is almost in a zero point before the painter constructs something. Painter decides the every things for building up the structure; function of the painting, selection of the image, color, composition, the way she/he plays with the picture plane, concept, meaning and so on. So, after using images for the planned system and finishing painting, I link the painting, like a normal object, with other things in the space.

Soo Jung

Parallel World: One day in/as million years

2009-01-22T15:18:00.000-08:00

Parallel World: One day in/as million years

January, 2009

Parallel World : When I was in my father's house, I was in a better place

2009-01-22T15:15:00.000-08:00

"Eat Healty" : When I was in my father's house, I was in a better place.
January 2009

Parallel World: Nausea

2009-01-22T13:34:00.000-08:00

Parallel World : Nausea

January 2009

Parallel World: FOK

2009-01-22T13:28:00.000-08:00

Parallel World : FOK
January 2009

Parallel World : Twix Painting

2009-01-09T16:43:00.000-08:00

PARALLEL WORLD ; TWIX PAINTING
Working from 01 January 2009 to 14 January 2009
Showing from 16 January 2009 to 25 January 2009

Painting is destined by physical reality as a condition of both interior and exterior. I'm interested in not only the painting's inner structure but also this condition. Images from the specific area, period, media and social context are transformed into the system of my painting as materiality.

Now, I'm a bottomless painter, image rider, intruder and stalker who is thinking about type, typo, topology as a structure of pun and an interconnection of each other in the social, material and image system, as a castaway in certain area.

I'm in Trondheim, Norway. Wandering around this area for capturing images, thinking about two weeks plan for the show at Babel, eating Twix chocolate bars, I encounter a dystopian spot and find that this place is paralleled with someone's desire of utopia. Collecting remnants such as personal photos, books, signboard design, drawings and mails in the place, documenting the place by digital camera and classifying them, I make a conclusion that someone who once lived here is a ' Type ' creator for the politically neutral place. He/she is a sign painter for bars, barbershops and restaurants. I feel some commonality between I and him/her in the way to approach the world; collecting, classifying and structuring the perspective of better future with an attachment of our present by painting in neutral attitude. We are paralleled. Consequently, Twix chocolate bar become a parallel world of two weeks painting about him/her as a reference, in the sense of its unique structure of paralleled twin, repeating layers of thin cracker inside, melted caramel, colors of its logo and wrapping - funky red and white - and sweet taste of life.

Twix painting is mispronunciation or typological error of Two Weeks Painting. It's about the time, chocolate and a sign painter's desire of ideal future. There is a hybridization between exterior condition of painting, structure of Twix chocolate bar and my idea from outer reality in this twin painting. And this twin painting is paralleled with another two weeks painting once, in Glasgow, London and Berlin.

January 2009
soojung

Letter to Typo Demon

2008-12-15T10:55:00.000-08:00

Quoted Image, Die Totenisel, Boecklin Arnold

hello. mr. TYPO.
you are my TYPE. you are a man of nerve.
so, i'm going across Lethe, the river of oblivion, to be with you.
now, my boat is pitching and rolling heavily.
thanatos attempts to suicide due to Nausea.
he's alive and keeps muttering.
i get nausea too.
i go t nauddsrea,
i gutnausea
tot nauywea
=deu to nayyuseai
i don''t liil;obve you.
i forgiet aaobug6t you ,

everlasting yours,
soo jung

(from January 2009 'TYPO DEMON')

The Irish Times

2008-10-20T14:28:00.000-07:00

03 October 2008 artisit?

Rainbow

2008-10-12T07:59:00.000-07:00

RAINBOW 2007 - Review
The structure that Choi Soo-jung build up in her paintings
Power Ekroth, Swedish Curator, 2007

What at first might strike one as a link to the surreal in Soo-jung Choi’s paintings is deceiving. There are absolute deliberate and conscious choices behind every part of her work. She “cuts” out lived bits and fragments from her own environment and surroundings with everyday objects, events or situations that occur close by her in her life that she in turn frame and put together into the new context of her paintings and other work. The works represent a totally new context for the fragmented pieces which in turn provide an experienced reality for the spectator to dwell upon in a “maze” or rebus. The structure that she builds up in her compositions points in many different directions which don’t necessarily add up to a coherent image for the spectator, but it is a structure of Choi’s own. It would be deceitful to believe that there are any inconsistencies in her painting due to the deconstructed and reconstructed image. There are no random acts of temporary gatherings of her “bricks” or “frames” that she uses to build up the works with, these are instead intended markers to trivial things in our life that also are markers to something that are important cornerstones of the vary same life.

The use of the word “frame” is here is also deliberate; the relation between one of her paintings and a film is easily discerned. The frames where a particular object or a certain situation is singled out, freezed and placed into a specific new context make up a new narrative based upon the imagination of both the artist and the onlooker. Hence, that she mentions film directors like Jean Luc Godard, Jim Jarmusch or David Lyncj as inspirational for her comes as no surprise. The maze the draws are coded by recurrent markers, Markers here could be faceless people, cartoon figures, animals of different kinds sort of cut’ n’ pasted into the paintings. One such marker she makes use of in several of her work is the black and yellow cone, the one you see on the street that in turn marks out an area of potential danger it may be a pot hole in the street or just as very well a restricted area due to other kinds of dangers. This colour code of yellow and black signals danger even in nature, just think about the body of the wasp. What is the danger that the cone signal in her work? The cone appears not only in the paintings but also as a sculpture, but then partially “melted” down, where the melted part creates a “puddle” of cone-ness. What happens if one was about to step into the puddle? In my own imagination it is a veritable rabbit hole the sort of rabbit hole that Alice in Wonderland fell through. The cone appears to be dangerous in it-self.

The limit of our imagination is researched in her paintings, what can art do and how can we make sense out of the reality that makes both sense and nonsense? In this respect Choi’s artwork presents a potential map to her own reality. Choi herself says about her art quite illustratively: “My artwork (especially the painting) is to me a question mark and an endless quotation about the world around me. So, I would continue to let my audience question, providing them with an onlooker’s trivial questions about the context.”

Playgoing

2008-10-12T07:54:00.000-07:00

-PLAYGOING 2005 -
On the image on an image
Lee Eun_ju, Curator, Brain Factory

The work of Choi Soo_jung tells about how the image produced in the consumer society exist, Reusing graphical colors, compositions and images adopted from the mass media, she often reveals the sentiment of the age where images are floating as buoys. In this exhibition, she arranges various visual data which is derived from or reminds us of the image of Liberty Leading the People of Delacroix. For example, she accepts the image from the large-sized advertisement poster commemorating the National Liberation Day where people are gathering around women activists, including Yu Gwan-sun, which is overlapped with the Liberty Leading the people in Delacroix’s picture. A documentary photo of AP agency standing along with this image features a woman who is dancing with her hands up to the sky among demonstrators against U.S. President Bush in Copenhagen.

Though it is a photo that catches the actual event, Choi Soo_jung reproduces it as if it were a painted picture with visual effect in mixtures of images. The most essential truth of the actual event is edited into a frame reflecting the attributes of the medium and is changed into an artificial image maximizing only a fragment of the events. In addition, it forms arbitrary fantasy indifferent of the original purpose in the system of the receiver.

The imposing and beautiful appearance of the woman among the fiery background in the documentary photo is harmonized with the picturesque and dramatic effects of “the Goddess of Liberty” of Delacroix, and provides visual information similar to the effects. An objective fact is melted and penetrated into the context of fictional image. The video shooting frantic spectators in a concert and the heated theater is also sucked into this context and is read similarly. Choi Soo-jung speaks of the role of a visual artist living in reality that is filled with excessive image information through these works. Various locations where Delacroix’s picture and documentary photos are found are drawn in the canvas, centered among these references. The places represent the creative space of the author’s own, where various phases of image fragments encounter each other.

In the work of Choi Soo-jung, which unveil the complicated aspects of the images such as pictures, copied materials and paintings, we can feel a certain conspiracy of a sinister system feeling in the daily live stuffed with the images of consumer society, or a cold smile at the disorientation, or the amusement of an image consumer enjoying the saturation of images. These attributes disclose the post-pop element reflecting the cultural phenomenon of the post consumer capitalist society. Choi Soo-jung speaks of the limitless thickness of the image existing between reality and fiction by creating a fantasy for the image of the consumer society like a black comedy. Therefore, she finds her own identity as a person making poetic fiction among the multi-phased hypertexts and the multiplication of inauthentic images.

structure drawings for the works

2008-10-03T06:59:00.000-07:00

A. Rainbow 2007
B. Difference at the same time the Same- Construct Demolition 2007-2008
C. Treasure Island 2008- (upcoming)

Death Note

2008-10-03T06:57:00.000-07:00

The dead remain fake flowers
2007

A house of card

2008-10-03T06:56:00.000-07:00

a house of card 2007

a shelf peel, a palette, one painting and four painting at the same time

2008-10-03T06:53:00.001-07:00

a shelf peel, a palette, one painting and four painting at the same time
2004

camouflage-rainbow

2008-08-22T10:49:00.000-07:00

2007. camouflage-rainbow

floccinaucinihilipilification

2008-08-17T09:22:00.000-07:00

2008 soojung

FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION/flɒksɪˌnɔːsɪˌnɪhɪlɪˌpɪlɪfɪˌkeɪʃn/ The action or habit of judging something to be worthless. flocci is derived from floccus, literally a tuft of wool, figuratively in Latin something trivial; pili is likewise the plural of pilus, a hair, which we have inherited in words like depilatory, but which in Latin could mean a whit, jot, trifle or generally a thing that is insignificant; nihili is from nihil, nothing, as in words like nihilism and annihilate; nauci just means worthless. -from world wide word-

truths invasion

2008-07-24T10:29:00.000-07:00

FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION/flɒksɪˌnɔːsɪˌnɪhɪlɪˌpɪlɪfɪˌkeɪʃn/
The action or habit of judging something to be worthless.

Truths Attack
It was an enormous cloud of truths. They left faint traces. The traces generated numerous suspicions. Glorious stories with suspicions covered the sky and made a huge shadow. Falsehoods appeared following the shadow. Some truths and falsehoods fell in love. They built their love nest, and left. Their illegitimate children were left, and their mutations were generated. Population increased. The place was isolated by diehard conservatives. Mutations were vertically accumulated in this limited area. It seemed like a tower of Babel. It pierced a small hole to the thick layers of sentences floating the sky. Light shined again. I’m a mutation who witnessed this historical moment. I hate both a truth and falsehood party. Who dare judge me?
2008 soojung

2008 statement

2008-07-01T07:39:00.000-07:00

September 2007-June 2008

Glasgow School of Art, MFA

Choi, Soo Jung
b. 1977, South Korea, Planet Earth, Solar System

God is keen on dice play. Possibility is a person's desire. Choice is who we are.

I choose trivial images which do not function well in certain contexts in our everyday life. I paint these images as intended markers for my personal story. However, they are still small, scattered, and neutral.

Small representational images, which appear isolated from any precise context in my paintings, give the possibility of various interpretations to each individual viewer, almost like a flashback. These images, which are juxtaposed and accumulated, function as peels of acrylic colour on the surface and expose the background by being located in it. The picture plane creates both a pictorial illusion and non-identical space. -2008 soojung

Difference at the same time the Same- construct demolition

acrobatic leader, ROMEO and idler, JULIET make love in BLIND SPOT. time goes so fast as if we watch fascinating CIRCUS. but, as you know, god is keen on DICEPLAY. they were completely demolished by a HARD_BOILED world ,namely missing world, INCA, full of horn blowing and pointless shoveling. -2008, soojung

Roundtable 2007

2008-07-01T07:27:00.001-07:00

Roundtable during solo show 2007
Insa Art Space of the Arts Council Korea

Choi, Soo Jung
Jan Christensen
Power Ekroth
Eland Hammer

2007

Rainbow - 2007 solo show

2008-07-01T07:03:00.000-07:00

RAINBOW 2007 Insa Art Space of the Arts Council Korea

ground floor

A brain-scattered person C glimpses at objects. C can hardlyh concentrate. She watches 'Demetan Croaker, The Boy, Frog', an animation film. Suddenly she looks at the refrigerator wishing cool water may be delivered to her. Then she watches out of the window to see the weather but there are office workers passing in droves. She comes back to the animation to catch the story. But she drops a toy on the floor and tries to pick it up, and finds a spot on the floor. She thinks she should fix the day of house cleaning , and see the calendar and check the birthday. She glances at the TV monitor again to find where it's raining on the 'Rainbow Pond' and sees closing credits as names of people ascending in row after row. In this kind of situation, optimisticc frog 'Demetan Crocker' is not a hero any more. Then how about a toy, a spot, and so on? What's seen in the state of inattentiveness are a network of complicated relations. The relations change constantly in a continuous and non-continuous way. 'Possibility is not fixed, either. Possibility is the faith of those who do not know fully'. That can become a reality or end up as an illusion. As an illusion draws out another illusion, it is probable-99%- that the 'end' is another 'beginning'. Now, things become so complicated, I need to check things before I forget them.

There is a commonality between the 'rainbow' and the 'work' I think of. Rainbow looks like semi-circles. But they are circles indeed. THerefore, the end of the rainbow is the faith of people, which is impossible in reality. Rianbow is made of light, water drops, appropriate angle and viewpoint. It realizes itself as colors and form, and exists as calculatble statistics or chances. Yet people read a rainbow as numerous fantasies at its impossible end.

I paint 'rainbow pond' and 'floor' and etc. from the viewpoint of C or of an onlooker. I overlap a lot of places and clues by combining sequences and images, or by painting them in a half way or plausible way, or by taking off and attaching them in the frame. The trivial things which don't function in a certain context will be connected as a story by being interwoven as colors and forms. The story formed in this way is the faith of audiences who hide 'impossibility of entire communication' and it does not mean political.

2007, soo jung

'what' - 2004 solo show text

2008-07-01T05:14:00.000-07:00

WHAT - 2004 space CELL
a demonstrative pronoun,
something that does not need to be said or something that is not particular, objects, events.
"'What' is that? 'What' did I ask to hand me? I wonder 'what' keeps him in agony so much. Iam hungry so I think I have to eat 'whatever.' 'What' chased me in my dream?"

Extra emotions like boredom, wearisomeness, and ambiguity are relatively so important that we cannot help noticing them and, at the same time, remaining in irony. Ambiguity is ambiguous so that we never know what is clear and what is not - neither when ambiguously explaning about ambiguity nor when clearly explaining about ambiguity. Yet, it is important that what Iam interested in is neither clarity nor keenness but irony and fludity.

So, even though I hope that my current story has genuine pathos from sharp ears, speed of understanding the circumstance, sincere humors and true feelings on lightness, I still have to consider that this is possibly a nonsensicial gag. Anyway, it is meaningless to ask 'why' if there is no 'what'.

2004, soo jung

At the place where I saw them

2008-06-10T04:23:00.001-07:00

At the place where I saw them
No matter sleep or be awake and hectic or peaceful everyone's an amnesiac.
soojung, 2007

misfortune without so much hope

2008-06-10T04:17:00.001-07:00

Misfortune without so much hope

Seven weeks ago, people started education on a fantastic world. There was no hope for the realization of this world though. It is because the leader of the gangsters methodically created the visible illusions. Life withered, and people kept in silence, and they particularly felt humiliated about graceful objects. Happy onlookers with appropriate humors singled out ridiculous forms. In the transient thus tense city, the humane consolation was regarded immorality. People laughed at small talks of wisdom. Progress is disgusting! For those who had constantly longed to get a certification as human beings, youth did not mean any. They always encountered illusions. The external world forced suppressing consciousness and exaggerating fear. This is exactly what it is - how magnificent! - this is everything! As the civilization settles, metaphors as in those completed dramas get trashed.
soojung- 2007.

image juke box 01 - starfish

2008-06-07T06:19:00.000-07:00

image juke box 01. starfish

images are based on conversation.

2000

habit

2008-06-02T03:55:00.002-07:00

01. calculating hair
'boring', 'wearisome', 'depressing'
2004

chocolate pillar painting

2008-06-02T03:41:00.000-07:00

2007

pavilion

2008-06-01T06:32:00.002-07:00

soojung, eunju, boram

2004

playgoing

2008-06-01T06:28:00.000-07:00

pretending, emperor's new clothes

2005

bang!

2008-05-27T04:06:00.000-07:00

bang-
2007

destination, destiny

2008-05-27T04:00:00.000-07:00

destination, destiny

2005

smoke

2008-05-27T00:41:00.000-07:00

cigarette smoke comes out from the moniter.

2005

commonsense

2008-05-26T09:23:00.000-07:00

2004

Cone

2008-05-23T04:30:00.001-07:00