Kim Sun Mi _ Writer
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JULY 2023
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Dawn is not just a time to wait for the morning. It is when people who have bid farewell to the night move forward towards a new day. Those who shed their own darkness and embark on a journey towards the vibrant dawn are all explorers of their own lives.
“THE VASTNESS Ⅱ” may be the accumulation of Kim Woo Young’s unfamiliar moments of dawn captured in pixels. It is the culmination of moments when he confronts the true essence of things, unaffected by the distortion of light, before the sun casts shadows upon everything on the earth. His story travels back in time.
Death Valley in Eastern California. Amidst the overwhelming landscape, where solid rock formations in different colors and textures do not permit the growth of vegetation, he found comfort. The dawn he spent on a thin airbed mattress on the rugged land was different from the usual mornings in the city. Just as the act of barefooted individuals connecting with the Earth is called “Earthing”, he seemed to connect his entire body with the Earth. It felt as though the Earth’s energy
seeped into his wounded self, gently soothing his scars. Dawn was a time when new life sprouted within the muscles of his spirit.
The artist felt the same way when he stood alone in the salt desert, recalling the primal sea before the formation of land. He lowered his body to see small and delicate entities, such as roadside grass and bushes that have survived sandstorms.
“THE VASTNESS Ⅱ” reveals countless dawns that have passed through Kim Woo Young’s body, and this is the reason it feels serene yet not silent. It seemed a caressing touch consoled the desolate wilderness. Perhaps it was the breath of Mother Earth permeating his body. Most of his photographs depict the landscapes he encountered during his journey to the United States in 2007 after his sudden departure. In the embrace of nature which evokes an irresistible presence, he regained the strength to rise again.
“I’m starting to show what I promised a long time ago.”
In the “Beautiful Promise” exhibition held at Kumho Museum of Art in 2005, he expressed his desire to work on “air” in the future. “Beautiful Promise” was an exhibition where he recorded his journey to Everest, accompanied by his contemporary mountaineer Um Hong Gil, in his own way. What inspiration did the rarefied air of the Himalayas offer to him? His words sounded like a resolution he made when he looked at the mountains and beyond yearning for the highest point on Earth.
Afterward, whenever he returned to Korea, followed by a long stay abroad, he would always invite us to his new exhibition. From “Boulevard-Boulevard” (Park Ryu Sook Gallery, Seoul) in 2014, a vibrant display of colors on the empty ruins left behind in the city that people had departed from, and a unique interpretation of hanoks in 2016 at Choi Sunu House Memorial Museum, to “Philosophizing the Landscape” in 2017 (Gallery Simon, Seoul), and most recently “Poetics of Tranquility” in 2021 (Joong Jung Gallery, Seoul), Kim Woo Young’s gaze appeared as serene as his photographs, which he named the aesthetics of tranquility. It was evident that he was confidently exploring various genres.
In front of his works encountered in different times and spaces, I suddenly recalled his longstanding promise: he once mentioned that the air quality and colors in nature are different from those in the city. It was in Kim Woo Young’s studio that I saw “THE VASTNESS Ⅱ” first before the exhibition hall. Located on the top floor of Sewoon Sangga along the Cheonggyecheon Stream, his studio was a remodeled space that used to be a bank. One side of the wall was covered with photographs taken in Death Valley. It was an overwhelming landscape and even the arrangement alone was a magnificent performance. Everything was a typical Kim Woo Young selection.
Among the old promises that Kim Woo Young revealed in his studio, there was something like the primal matter that brings forth everything anew when the world is created. The unfamiliar landscapes he had reached served as a signpost, calmly indicating the way back.
Just as in his previous work “Boulevard-Boulevard” where he forcefully drew the road he had stepped on into the frame like a “cold abstraction”, his series of the land also carried the paths, which he had walked and had to return to, in the angle of the image.
While other landscape photographs of the same places are like tempting travel packages, his photographs clearly conveyed different stories. I felt that there was no need to ask where each location was.
The quote from “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau came to mind: “The important thing is not how far you have gone, but how awake you are.
Explore your own river and ocean. Be a thinking Columbus, not the one who serves for the empire’s ambition or trade.”
The spirit of the times covers and uncovers intact rivers depending on the level of consciousness of people at that time. Sewoon Sangga, where his studio is located, overlooks the Cheonggyecheon Stream surrounded by high-rise buildings obstructing the view of the mountains. Under the ground where Yeji-dong’s Clock Alley once existed, archaeological excavations for redevelopment were in full swing. Designed by architect Kim Swoo Geun, Sewoon Sangga, spoke to people from the cutting edge of the zeitgeist, and continues to do so.
Kim Woo Young’s photographs are no different. It is said that he now walks through Jongmyo Shrine and the Cheonggyecheon area everyday early in the morning. Amidst the overlapping landscapes of different times and values in the heart of the old downtown, Kim Woo Young’s exploration continues. It is the artist’s destiny to question the origin at the forefront of the zeitgeist.
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