A Surface of Status - The Set -A man smoking a cigarette
Sunkwan Kwon2008/2009
Korean Art Museum Association
Seoul, South Korea
consists of 3 series, called 'The Set', 'The Thing' and 'The face'. 'The Set' takes a temporary fabricated place as the object, such as: the stage, model house, and show room. There appears to be some actors who are performing drama-like scenes. The spaces and objects in this series seem like undeveloped noumenal images, which surround the surface of its principle. Simultaneously, it shows typicality in relations, hierarchy of conscious action in directed situations and unconscious action in accidental situations. By overlapping significances, connoted meaning of the things in the image become ambiguous. Therefore, composing meaning established from the information becomes difficult.
- Title: A Surface of Status - The Set -A man smoking a cigarette
- Creator: Kwon, Sunkwan
- Creator Lifespan: 1973
- Creator Nationality: Korean
- Creator Birth Place: Jeonju, Korea
- Date Created: 2008/2009
- Physical Dimensions: w1890 x h1500 cm
- Type: Photography
- Medium: Digital C-print
- Critic's Note: Sunkwan Kwon is one of the most reputable photo artists in Korea, known for his superior technics. He depicts a malerisch sense in his portrait work and depicts a birdseye view in his landscape photographs. Overall his work retains characteristics of directed photographs. The artist demonstrates his ability to make the spectator confused by recognizing fortuities in real situation and probabilities in intentional direction. In consequence, while they face Sunkwan Kwon’s artwork, the audience is demanded to continuously interpret the scene displayed. To interpret his artwork, the spectators consider the significance of the point of view. They should keep having tenacious questions that ask who the characters are, why they show tense expressions on their face and what their situations are. ‘Spectacular visibility’ that is presented in his photographs is also a general attraction of his work. Similar to pictorial puzzle, there exist some infinitesimal hidden figures in his 2-3 meter sized gigantic photos. Discarding the tradition to position main characters in the center of the scene, he expands the scale of the photograph through concealing the protagonist out of the way, in the corner. Therefore, observers are able to be rid of esthetical composition and techniques, and free to be absorbed in the hidden characters of the scene and explore their significance. His artwork can be defined as a process of initial inquiry that probes the essence of photo media to the origin. As a consequence, he attempts to create another world through the photo for a record, for an 'estheticher gegenstand,' and for a challenge of technical limitation. As a result there is a nebulous situation, where it is hard to figure out the circumstance between the deliberate direction of artist and coincidence. The spectators are confronted with difficulties of interpreting situational significance and context. Sunkwan Kwon is a rare attainer who extensively applies the following to his work: the social aspect of photographs, relationship between significance and rhetoric, the range of possibility and limitation of photo media with aesthetical composition.
- Artist's Education: Korea National University of Arts, M.F.A., Media Art.
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