김춘환개인전

“Almost everyday my mailbox is completely filled with, not mail but, pr material and paper advertisements.  Accordingly, I breathe and live in this consumption, information, internet, science oriented, state-of-the-art society.  My everyday life moves with short breaths in this information flooded world --- letters, numbers, symbols, image of society.  Nobody realizes that they are being damaged, although life is being stained by consumption and the media.  Moreover, we ourselves do not realize the fact that we are the ones who are intensifying the situation.  Instead, are we worrying about falling behind by chasing this reality without any purpose?  I think that someone has said this before.  Artist is another name for someone who possesses all the ills of a sick world and the reason that an artist has the ability to see through this sick world is that they can envision this world at a distance and yet be living in it.”

Chun Hwan Kim started working with wasted material such as abandoned wooden palettes, paper advertisements, old magazines, telephone books, etc., he found nearby his home. His works are a reaction to the picture portrayed by our consumption and image obsessed society.  His “A la mode” series are formed from advertisements and old magazines he acquired from nearby.  He first takes these and scrunches and glues them individually.  He then glues each prepared piece one by one into a square wooden box.  In each scrunched up paper there is a story of the daily events that occurs in the world around him.  They gather in one place to spit out their individual voices.  The “tales of this society” appear to him jumbled and worn because there are some many to be heard.  After drying the glued in pieces for about one week, he begins his cutting.  The word cutting generally contains negative meaning.  However in his work, rather than displaying outer negativity, Chun Hwan Kim unifies inner individual voices.  Accordingly, cutting clearly brings out the basic nature of paper and the kept secrets of the “world’s tales” are quietly whispered.