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Born Fast
Hyungkoo Lee2009
The Olympic Museum
Lausanne, Switzerland
The sculpture “Born Fast” represents the bone structure of an athlete’s foot on the starting line.
The marathon of the modern Olympic Games praises the sublime achievement of an Ancient Greek soldier who ran to his homeland to deliver the news of a triumph. Born Fast, like the origin of the Olympic Games, depicts the runner’s foot at the starting line, symbolising humankind’s ability to challenge and create through human strength. The bones in Lee’s sculpture represent the never changing human essence. Ten times larger than the average size of the foot, Born Fast captures and shows human nature’s endless craving for a challenge in life.
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Details
- Title: Born Fast
- Creator Lifespan: 1969
- Creator Nationality: Korean
- Creator Gender: Male
- Creator Birth Place: Pohang, Republic of Korea
- Date Created: 2009
- Location Created: Republic of Korea
- Sculptor: Hyungkoo Lee
- Physical Dimensions: w1320 x h2620 x d1040 cm (Complete)
- Description: This sculpture may be related to the Animatus series, when the artist produced skeletons of cartoon characters as if they were real animal species.
- Collection information: The sculpture was donated by the South Korean National Olympic Committee to The Olympic Museum in 2009.
- Artistic school or movement: Hyungkoo Lee started his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the College of Fine Art of Hong-Ik University in Seoul in 1998 and obtained his Master of Fine Arts in sculpture at the School of Art in Yale in 2002. He was the first artist to be granted an individual exhibition in the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2007. Lee achieved general recognition with his “Objectuals” project in 2004, in which he used optical instruments to distort physical appearance. He produced unlikely laboratory instruments like bubble-helmets which deform facial features. Two years later, he created his famous “Animatus” series, in which he carried out extremely detailed and scientific research on the anatomy and the skeletons of non-existent animals such as cartoon characters. This series was attributed to the tradition of Pop Art. His work was a reflection on image, authenticity, virtuality, the ideal of representation and the so-called scientific approach. Zanily but keenly, Lee appropriates art as a subversive means to deconstruct actual reality and reconstruct other possible ones.
- Type: Sculpture
- Rights: International Olympic Committee, 2009, ©IOC/Jürg-Donatsch
- External Link: IOC/The Olympic Museum
- Medium: Bronze sculpture painted white
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