|
Kakyong Lee recent inclusion in “Drawings and Prints, Selections from the Permanent Collection”—an exhibit showcasing drawings, etchings, and prints from the mid 16th through today—at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was a significant and impressive demonstration of her significant contribution to the contemporary art world. Her animations, installation, and prints on paper were in the middle of historical masters’ selections. The title of her two-part work is named, Untitled – Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, NY, 03.0 work. One segment of the work is presented digitally through video technology while the other is composed of hand-drawn dry point prints. Lee has also recently shown at Sabina Gallery in Los Angeles where she presented three video works from The Crossing Series: a sequence of video installations based on her dry point prints. Her two expressive methods of working are rarely, if ever, mutually exclusive; at “Drawings and Prints” they were displayed as one work with the animation sandwiched between her print installations. |
|
Kakyong Lee, Walk-2010, 2010. Black-and-white animated HD video with recorded sound (1 min. loop) and 198 drypoint prints on Hahnemühle Copperplate bright white paper, images: 6 3/4 x 10 3/8 inches each, paper: 11 1/4 x 15 1/4 inches, edition of 2, printed by the artist, published by Michael Steinberg Editions, New York. Courtesy of the artist and Mary Ryan gallery, NY
Kakyoung Lee – The Truth in the Moment
By Soojung Hyun
Kakyong Lee recent inclusion in “Drawings and Prints, Selections from the Permanent Collection”—an exhibit showcasing drawings, etchings, and prints from the mid 16th through today—at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was a significant and impressive demonstration of her significant contribution to the contemporary art world. Her animations, installation, and prints on paper were in the middle of historical masters’ selections. The title of her two-part work is named, Untitled – Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, NY, 03.0 work. One segment of the work is presented digitally through video technology while the other is composed of hand-drawn dry point prints. Lee has also recently shown at Sabina Gallery in Los Angeles where she presented three video works from The Crossing Series: a sequence of video installations based on her dry point prints. Her two expressive methods of working are rarely, if ever, mutually exclusive; at “Drawings and Prints” they were displayed as one work with the animation sandwiched between her print installations.
Kakyoung lives and works in Brooklyn with her two daughters and husband; her every day experiences are evident in her artwork. Many of her images contain metaphorical expressions of conception and motherhood in Birth (2009) and Walking (2010). The latter is a beautiful installation combining her hand drawn animation video and dry point prints. The artist pushes her two children in a stroller in the upper-left hand corner and then zigzags through empty white space to the foreground at the lower-right. Behind this animation are several line drawings of her and her daughters tracing their walk. The images are repeated over and over, each one becoming darker. Her intensely moving black and white images are focused on the repetitive nature of her daily life.
Walking is composed by 198 dry point prints. Even though the video installation only lasts one minute, it is evident that the time taken to produce such a work is lengthy and intensive. Kakyoung’s works, be it video or drawing, all originate as one image under a single sheet of plexi-glass. Each image is scratched and accumulated on top of the glass, then photographed and made into a dry point print. She draws the next image while a remnant remains on the glass and then makes hundreds of images drawing, erasing, and redrawing on the same sheet of plexi. Eventually, the last sequence of images is all that remains on the surface of the object, along with the traces of erased images. The process deconstructing and reconstructing echoes the theme of repetition and continuity in her works.
Kakyong has stated that she is “trying to locate my identity, I seek it in the different geographic and cultural milieus through which I have passed. … I play with time and space, again non-historical space and layers of everyday life in an abstract reconstruction.” A point clearly illustrated in Walk. Tracing movement was first visualized by the investigation of chrono-photography techniques in the early 20th century. French photographers Marey and Muybridge found therein an expression of speed, long before video works. Kakyong’s work furthers this scientifically-mind art field.
Her works presents “tangible speed” and adds conceptual dimensions to ideas about time. She plays with our sense of time through tactile images on paper and with virtual images on iPads. Illustrating the role of the artist as one who allows people see what is already there yet goes unnoticed, or to let them view it in a way never before seen. Lee invites the viewer to reevaluate the 60-second standard and to examine how we experience time in motion. Her work prods the viewer to rethink “The Truth in the Moment” beyond our conditioned sense of value.
