Michael Joo sees Dokdo identity in state of constant flux

By Woo Jae-yeon

SEOUL, Nov. 30 (Yonhap) -- It is hard to categorize Michael Joo's artwork. Taking into consideration the process of thinking and making art, it more looks like he is engaged in an experiment of chemistry, physics and geology, looking for the possibilities and potentials of various objects.

A biology graduate, Joo refuses to be classified in the field of art. He combines science and art, utilizes a wide range of cross-disciplinary methods and keeps pushing the boundaries of contemporary art.

For "Liminus," a new series of pieces currently on view at Kukje Gallery in Seoul as part of his major solo exhibition "Single Breath Transfer," he took a trip to Dokdo, a group of small islets off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula, to capture on canvas what he thinks is the islets' constantly changing identity.

To create one work, he placed a canvas on the ground and applied a transparent resin to it to take an impression of the rocky, unstable surface. He left it there for 72 hours to trace how natural and human forces influence it, if at all, while it cured.

"(The work was) transparent at first. I am trying not to make an image. I am trying basically to get the feelings," Joo told reporters during a media briefing at the gallery Thursday.

The dried canvas was then sent back to his studio in New York to go through a mirroring process involving silver nitrate, which metalizes the surface to enhance its reflectivity, thus bringing life to the lifeless.

It wasn't an easy task to make a trip to Dokdo because the weather was very volatile. It took him much longer than he had initially expected. But at the same time, the stormy weather in the East Sea locked him up on the islets long enough to have the work done, he said.

Born in America to Korean parents, he is well aware of how politically charged Dokdo is, but he emphasized that the project is not about sovereignty or politics but about his persistent academic, artistic interest in places or spaces "that are in-between or liminal" and have "mixed identities in different people's minds."

"It is so difficult to live on this island because it is vertical for humans. There is a kind of beauty to that, to that strength it takes to live on this island," he said, adding that a mixture of violence and beauty is all part of nature but also part of what it takes to bring life to the place.

Each piece in the series has a markedly different shape and sensitivity, reflecting the different geographical features and landscapes they were placed upon. Some of them have odd things attached to the canvas that have clearly been thrown there by strong wind while they were being cured on the islands.

Other new projects on display include "Singe Breath Transfer," a set of twelve glass sculptures created by capturing the artist's own breath in plastic bags that were then turned into sculptures through a glass molding process. The gallery explains that is the perfect embodiment of "the transitional state of matter," something that has fascinated Joo for years.

Having won the grand prize at the 6th Gwangju Biennale, his artworks are housed in many private and public art institutions, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Whitney Museum of American Art.

The exhibition, his first major show in Korea in almost 10 years, runs from Nov. 30 to Dec. 21.

jaeyeon.woo@yna.co.kr
(END)