What lies behind the image

the wonders of the world
​
Kim Myung-soo's recent work is done to surprise us or arouse strange feelings in us. First of all, this surprise comes from what we're seeing. Our eyes do not accept his work as a painting or a photograph. So it takes some time to acknowledge that his works are simply copies.
Our spirit, which is used to connect art to a form of some value and Amam-ri, is mixed up in its certainty from the beginning.
In the case of Kim Myung-soo, no fascinating attempts are found, but this reinforces his unique meaning. Obviously, dependence on copies seems to be a choice of position as an artist. The choice of this position reminds us that the general decline in the value of art today should be considered here, as well as the value of the artistic phenomenon itself and the resulting image. The infinite possibilities of cloning created with industrialization have dramatically changed its status. It was probably the German thinker Walter Benjamin who saw this phenomenon most deeply in the works of art in the era of technological reproducibility. In the work, we can clearly read the following phrases. What can be said in general is that cloning technology separates reproduced objects from the realm of tradition. By mass-producing copies, cloning technology turns a single production into a phenomenon of mass production. Replication technology gives the object a sense of reality, allowing it to be provided visually or audibly in any situation. "Art cannot and should not conceal the violence of the very truth.
In this respect, Kim Myung-soo seems to have recognized the need for direct face-to-face with the phenomenon of reproduction of countless images. Produced from images taken from print, these copies give us a dry, vast view of the earth. There, humans seem to be unable to find their place as they deepen the feeling of strangeness they feel ahead of the world - which we are targeting the infinite proliferation of images.

the strange absence of the center of the image

It is to counter this terrible proliferation that Kim Myung-soo creates on top of these copies, drawing a single shape or multiple shapes that resemble a kind of stone or cloud. The cloud-shaped stone will remain somewhere in the middle of this space that the image provides to our eyes. He reproduces the modified image several times, and then lightly paints the cloud-shaped stone with white. Since then, the cloud-shaped stone has not always left the scenery like strange ghosts. These forms that lie nowhere in the center tell us something that is hard to understand. As such, we are obsessed with this absence for ourselves, and in that absence, images reproduced so often hold us.
It goes without saying that the image presented by Kim Myung-soo is original. Because it is reworked by hand. But rather, the reason why I have to say that the image he presented has its own legitimacy is because
This is because the image refers to something that is lacking in the entire reproduced image in an accurate and effective manner. Walter Benjamin used to identify as follows. There is something missing from the most perfect reproduction. It is the uniqueness of existence in the place where the work of art exists now," but the place of here and the time of now no longer exist for us. Because we no longer know what that means. We have been ousted from a realistic existence and Kim Myung-soo knows it. Unlike many contemporary artists who mislead us that we can rediscover the meaning of this existence through several ways in painting, Kim Myung-soo does not pursue such existence.

the reincarnation of existence

​ Nevertheless, Kim Myung-soo presents us with an unfamiliar and unexpected passage. Look at this light stone like a cloud from heaven. It's trying to tell us something or show us something. Think carefully about the existence of this square-shaped Buddhist temple. The form is derived from the folded paper taken from children's play, or "tap." These floating forms, which seem to be connected to nothing, point to nothing, no place, no exact point in space. This is because the forms do not belong to space. The forms visualized by Kim Myung-soo are an indication of this deficiency that acts on the entire reproduced image. His forms, which are the basic embodiment of the invisible, thus do not connect the visible with the invisible.
And in this sense, the forms are not shown on their own unless they make the back of the entire image detectable. If this white color, which is not connected to anything, embodies something, it will be as inherent as the image itself that never leaves reality. It is this void that vibrates behind everything that exists and, consequently, behind the image that the white shows us. And this form refers to the form of existence when it is not invisible, nor the dark world of a cave without light, but when it becomes something that can no longer be thought of except his absence. In other words, it is an existential cemetery that never leaves the mind of people who could not match the world without the screen with images constantly reproduced by living people like these cloud-shaped high cages. The folded form of the scab refers to the meticulous completion of a friendly temple ascending to the empty sky. The temple may have the stealthy power to seduce and capture these floating forms and eventually purify them.
In this way, the intention of Kim Myung-soo's work is to realize that the way to reach the truth of existence must see this form with the eyes of the mind. In other words, he is not only trying to bring out the signs of his absence again and unfold them to us, but also to revive the existence of the most precious happiness in our minds.

November 1997
Jean-Louis POITEVIN
Art critic, professor at Paris 8