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Unmonument- Are All Doing Well? (no.5)

Lee, Jae Hoon and 이재훈2008

Korean Art Museum Association

Korean Art Museum Association
Seoul, South Korea

There is a stone monument with a symbol like 'Oh! You did good ' stamp messily surrounded by other stone monuments and people. Some people are covered one eye and others are one-eyed. The pessimistic perspective on nature and society is depicted through the image of nature which seems too bleak to embrace the human society. The audience could find the Book of Revelation-like vision through the image of the dead (the loser) and survivor (the winner). The natural state could make human beings fall to poverty and death. The destruction caused by an excessive concentration and abrupt movement ends the primitive state of peace that ‘naturally balances the satisfaction and need.’ (Jean-Jacques Rousseau) Whether primitive nature is good or evil the modern social contract did not eliminate the violent characteristic in human society. It adds the social violence to the natural violence.

Details

  • Title: Unmonument- Are All Doing Well? (no.5)
  • Creator: Lee, Jae Hoon, 이재훈
  • Creator Lifespan: 1978
  • Creator Nationality: Korean
  • Creator Birth Place: Seoul, Korea
  • Date Created: 2008
  • Physical Dimensions: w2300 x h5400 cm
  • Type: Painting
  • Medium: Korean traditional paper, quicklime, oriental color, acrylic color. Fresco
  • Collection: Propowercom Inc.
  • Artist's Note: A monument that cannot be a monument A monument is part of a social system that one’s subjective and internal value and ideal will be involved. It pursues a group’s beliefs and idealizes social roles. A monument figure stands solemnly and rigidly as part of our society. As a monument represents superficial characteristics and symbols, its physical existence contains social values. If the ideal value, meaning it represents and the reality has a gap, the monument is perceived only as a social belief or a sign. The real meaning is forgotten and it would be a monument that cannot be a monument: a un-monument that lost its original meaning and value. Nietzsche quoted, “The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it.” In other words, the irrationality is a condition of the rationality, because the relative value of them satisfies mutual existence. Thus, the existence of irrationality is a criterion of a rationality valuation. Like this, Un-monument is a paradoxical symbol to judge a value of a monument’s irrationality. This work is not trying to show the monument’s irrational role or value through the symbolism. Its purpose is to raise a 3 part question: monumentalized socially accepted norms inside our consciousness is the representation of unconditional belief and absolutes, a gap between social rationality (ideal value) and irrationality (reality), and the righteousness of these socially accepted norms being as men’s valuation standards.
  • Artist's Education: Chungang University. Seoul, Korea. B.F.A. & M.F.A., Korean Painting.

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