My interest in the silhouette image originated from the experimental works that I was making in the middle of the 1980s. It was a sculpture of a human figure composed partially of the negative and partially of the positive. It still made a normal human body and it felt as much. Whether it protruded or receded, the effect that it delivered turned out to be almost the same.


[pic] [pic][a Woman] bronze, 45x40x70cm, 1990


Such experiment drew my attention to the flat surface, which is the criterion used for judgement. Conversely, figuring out whether it was projection or recession depended upon where it was positioned in terms of the flat surface. It is then possible to draw a parallel between the flat plane and the number zero. Zero is positioned at neither backwards nor forwards; it is devoid of direction. I looked for something that has no direction, or something that maybe contains both directions at all. I had the serendipity of finding the silhouette, and started working on the motif of the silhouette in the late 1990s. The silhouette image on the flat plane, having defining Gestalt of the original object, served as a stepping stone on my way to formulating my inverted sculptures, something that began in earnest in 2003. The silhouette image retains traces of the objects and memories of their having existed; the silhouette is, at the simplest, akin to the substance of representation.


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[Attraction of the Olympics] bronze, 130x40x105cm, 1988


As a sculptor, what I was more concerned about was that the silhouette image posed as the perceptual confirmation of a being on the two-dimensional surface; it is a being that is transferred from the three-dimensional by means of the interplay of light and darkness. In other words, I felt that what initially occupied space attenuated to its least possible dimension; the mass was transformed into zero- accretion, so to speak, while still possessing a notion of the image of the original object. It can be said that the object no longer exists on one mode, and at the same time it still does exist on the other.


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[Aphasia-Interview] steel, 120x50x150cm,80x50x130cm,1999


Would it be possible to think of the silhouetted realm as the vintage-post where one can be aware of two different forms of existence? I am reminded of a time when I was much younger – that I was fascinated with a shoe-bag. You could flip it inside out, and yet, it was still usable and the same. Positive to negative. I come back to my childhood wonderings in my artist days, and wonder about such co-existences. So, on the strength of such query, I proceeded to conceive the formulation which could show a playful analysis of the potential of the silhouette image. In 2000, ‘Confrontation-Encounter’, ‘Aphasia-Reflex’, and ‘Absence’ were on view at the solo show, ‘Both Sides of Existence’ at the Moran Museum of Art in Korea, and they were related to such reading on the motif of the silhouette. I believe that those works were made with the resonance of the very concept which later on was ensconced and recapitulated in the form of the inverted sculpture.


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[Both Sides of Existence] wooden plates, fluorescent paint, 240x242cm, 2000

Confrontation-Encounter


The works ‘Confrontation-Encounter’ are constituted by two pieces of works: they are a pair. I made the silhouette in the form of a void in one of the works, whereas the other silhouette in the other work was made of mass. And one can see that one is extracted from the other. In other words, one can imagine to piece the two works together and see how the two works could slot perfectly into one another. These two existences of works are, indeed, one – and they were meant to be one. We are not sure where the actual man and woman are, but what the observers are certain of is the fact that these silhouettes are inverted from each other; they complement each other. The wholesome nature of ‘Confrontation-Encounter’ is double layered upon the observer’s mind by the fact that the two split images of the silhouette – one in positive and the other in negative – have been taken from the initial one.


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[Confrontation-Encounter] 134 sheets of MDF, 122x244x122cm, 2000


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Moving on, let me consider the surprising, rather mystical effect, which most of us are vulnerable to. In this case, firstly, two separate silhouette images of a man and a woman are stretched backwards to one at the other side. One comes to wonder, which is the silhouette of which? It is not wrong to say that one encounters the silhouette’s actual entity, pushing beyond the boundary of the silhouette! It is surprising how both become silhouettes, despite the fact that one work is the negative of the other. Now turning to the other visual consequence which our vision falls prey to; I am talking about how two hollow orifices become one. Especially when one gazes at another silhouetted outline through the silhouette at the far end of the darkish tunnel sided on the piled-up MDF sheets, it feels strange and eerie. All these unexpected discoveries are, I dare say, what viewers can find upon perambulating the vintage-post of the silhouette realm. They are the protean transformations on that different ways things exist and how their existence is perceived, all of which are something I got tapping with my ambulating queries. In this regard, the pair of works titled ‘Confrontation-Encounter’ is not an edifice of enigmatic ideas, or a closely-knit structure of artistic revelations. No, I never meant it that way. Rather, it is the visual articulation of my own search on the different forms of existence. It is a bit like a note, imperfect yet powerful, that reminds me of my own intuitive belief on the dialectic relation between the positive and the negative.

Aphasia-Reflex


The second work, ‘Aphasia-Reflex’ can be considered as a different version of ‘Confrontation-Encounter’. There standing before the viewer are the mirror and the slide projection in the place of stacked MDF sheets. I might even call the pair -‘Confrontation’ and ‘Aphasia’- fraternal twins. ‘Aphasia’ is a very simple set up, and the viewer might find comfort and a sense of satisfaction as he figures out how the artwork has been put together. There is a thin, materialistic representation of the silhouette in front – and using the light from the projector, we see the silhouettes of the silhouette. One of them projects upon the screen (of changing background pictures), scarred and marred, whereas the other projects into the corner between the screen and the mirror – allowing the mirror to complete the silhouette wholly. Again, there is the idea that two becomes one – there are two silhouettes projected onto the walls, but they come from a single source.


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[Aphasia-Reflex] mirror, slide projector, stainless steel, installation, 2000


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The clever mirror aided by the slide projection took over the job that the MDF panels did, and this lets the viewer experience in a split moment the process in which images have been doubly reflected, that is, on the mirror and then on the wall. If you allow me to run away with my own fantasy, the void silhouette at the other side of the cave of silhouette in the work, ‘Confrontation’, looks as if it were standing like a sentinel of the inverted territory and looking at us rather than being looked at. In the work ‘Aphasia’, the reflection of the mirror image of the cut-out silhouette evokes the presence of a phantom, much like the sentinel. Using a mirror and the projector might lend the work a modish coating, and yet as far as I am concerned the two works are protean treatment of the same theme. However, what is more important to this work is the sense of intimacy that ‘Aphasia’ brings, something that ‘Confrontation’ does not have. The change of medium is all it took – in fact, the projector not only projects the silhouettes of the 3D silhouette – but it incorporates the shadow of the viewer upon the artwork. The viewer is physically connected to the artwork, and we have a definite sense of closeness. In ‘Confrontation’, there is evident distance; distance in the fact that the viewer stands in awe of the execution of the art. This is different for ‘Aphasia’, because it is the concepts and thoughts of the artist that depresses upon the viewer’s mind, not the skill of the artist so as to say. In this way, the responses and sentiments of the viewer is greatly affected, just by the fact that perhaps the viewer shares a certain talent – a certain philosophy and wonderings.

Absence


The wall in the background is painted with fluorescent paint, and in front of it are two chairs. One is empty, but the other is occupied by a life-sized figure. From the centre of the room, a device projects light when it senses a viewer enter the room. It sweeps the wall by rotating 360 degrees, creating silhouettes upon the fluorescent wall. In this way, ‘Absence’ is, in a sense, interactive, similar to ‘Aphasia’. For example, when the viewer might enter the room and seat himself on the empty chair across the immobile figure, which results in the viewer being baptized with swishing light from the centre of the room. The fluorescent paint upon the wall works so that when the viewer gets up and leaves the chair, the part where light could not reach – in other words, the silhouette of the viewer – is left on the wall. With his shadow now separated and therefore objectified as part of the art, the viewer looks upon now two silhouettes – his own, and the seated figure’s. At a glance, one might even say that the seated figure is also watching this whole scene together with the viewer. However, slowly, the imprinted shadow fades away, now only a memory upon the fluorescent wall.


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[Absence] plaster, chair, wooden plates, fluorescent paint, 360x240x150cm, 2000


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Although to many of the viewers who are familiar with my silhouette works, the title of the work, ‘Absence’, implies something that has resonance of existence – as in the way the existence (the object) leaves a different form of itself (the silhouette), ‘Absence’ elicits a slightly different nuance from for instance, ‘Aphasia’. Yes, this work resembles ‘Aphasia’ in being interactive with the viewer, but the silhouette of the viewer, derived from the revolving swish of light, has a curious attribute that sets it apart from other works: the viewer leaves evidence that he has definitely been there with the imprinted silhouette. There is a faint whiff of a stagnant sense of time, as the viewer is aware of watching himself as the object upon the fluorescent wall. More importantly to ‘Absence’ is the presence of the immobile figure seated on the stool; there is a certain ambience; someone else is observing the left traces of the viewer’s existence and musing about it. The viewer’s perception of his own shadow is exquisitely and sentimentally heightened by the muse; the muse is watching it all from the very beginning – the viewer’s coming in, sitting down, gingerly mixed with perplexity and curiosity, the vacant stare at the seated figure, and leaving the place with the last glance to the inscribed shadow on the wall. Between the moments of the stool being occupied, and even after the person who has sat briefly across the muse deserted the place, the observer silently ruminates the after-taste of the existence – in other words, the absence.


It was through the presence of the muse that I tried to paraphrase what the work, ’Absence’ meant: the work was about ‘the artist’s statement of the artist’. The artist is mulling over the effect that has been made out of the simple device, the visual consequence, and is trying to see what has been casted and to understand its full implication in true light. This is the gist of the work, ‘Absence’. It is similar to a movie, once zoomed in upon a single story, but slowly the camera zooms out to show a bigger picture, showing and reflecting other stories and lives upon other corners of the world. ‘Absence’ at first, the viewer enters the room ignorant, and seats himself in front of the figure, the muse, the artist. Leaving an imprint of himself (the viewer), he makes a part of him an object in the art, and understands the art better with such more whole picture. In a slight twist, the viewer might (or might not) pick up that in fact the person standing at the furthest edge of the perspective is in fact the figure seated upon the chair in front of the fluorescent wall, experiencing the viewer, all the legacy of casted images of other viewers, their representations and interpretations.


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[Mirroring] plaster, 60x60x5cm, 1994

From the Silhouette to the Inverted Sculpture


Earlier in my note, I likened the silhouette works to an interrogation of the flat surface – the realm where the silhouette images reside on the one hand and the existence of the three-dimensional vanishes on the other hand. In that note, my focusing point was ‘the flat surface’ which is the intersection of existence and non-existence, the reason being that the existence of the object is reduced to zero at a flat surface. Only certain set of conditions such as light and darkness, generates the formation of silhouettes – which can be felt as the super-thinly milled remains of existence, when observed with the eyes of a sculptor’s jest. With the interaction of light and darkness removed, the residue of existence completely vanishes. This means to say that the pair of the works, ‘Confrontation-Encounter’ slot into each other, but then, alas, as soon as this happens, the silhouette images will be all gone. Nonetheless, as one saw in ‘Confrontation’, whatever was beyond the silhouette, with my execution, undoubtedly exist.


It was this realm of the flat surface that my thoughts bent on. To my mind’s eye, its address, ‘the zero’ beyond which the silhouette disappears, could be the threshold of the existence of a negative accretion and that of a positive accumulation. Capitalizing on such a seemingly crude abstraction of perception, I thought that there would be a way to represent the flat surface as that of the threshold of the perceptive confound. Through my sculptural solution, I could resurrect the negative realm as something that substantially existed. That artistic solution of mine was tantamount to the electrification of a dead cell which commanded one fixed dimension of perception and then revive a kind of apparatus within the cell – to enable viewers to see the reality through two different frames of reference. If I explain my inverted sculptures in relation to the silhouette works, the inverted sculpture can be seen as analogous to bringing together the two different forms of the silhouette in one body, albeit the fact that the negative realm does not disappear; rather it stays pivotal to what accentuates the perceptive search; repudiating a notion of negative as a simple antithesis of the positive; rather, conceiving it as another verity that is accepted as substantial at the other side of the sphere.


What changed the negative doubt into another positive affirmation is, surprisingly, the way how people perceived the negative. They perceived it as the positive even if I suggested it as the negative! Although, it was with a proviso, ‘the distance’. With a certain distance between the inverted concave and the viewer, people almost automatically understood the negative chaotic mass as the representation of what they observe according to the normal positive order. This meant that they were willing to shift the criterion of the flat surface, by simply pacing a few steps backwards and thus adjusting their position. This ‘distance’ can be seen, in a broadest sense as aesthetic distance. I would prefer to call it ‘critical distance’. My inverted sculpture, at a snap, calls the attention of the viewers, instantly involving them in applying the manual of the tool that is used for reading the images. The manual tells the viewer to relegate the immediate chaos of the image that is ensconced in the cavity to the background, and suspect the work in a ‘distanced’ form, while adjusting one’s frame of reference. Then, bingo, one comes to the conclusion – and reads it as the positive.


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“One sees a relief painting that entices and invites him, to draw the observer’s tentative footsteps towards the image of figures. These figures are trapped in mid-motion, tinged with solitariness; with a rather surrealistic hue. Some are blanching white, some with a bluish pallor, or sometimes in pronounced scarlet. As one approaches nearer towards the figure-sculpture, one’s heart throbs to find that the figures are not protruding, but concaving inwards; it is an enchanting illusion that could be taken as a congratulatory gift from the artist, Lee Yong Deok, for the small achievement on the viewer’s part that he has finally stumbled across the beauty and the prowess of Lee’s sculptures.


The pith of Lee’s idea in his sculptures is “time transportation”. Images of real life, that he has encountered and observed, are transferred to the present in the form of his sculptures. The images had resided either in memory or on a photo. In order to make this transfer possible, a perceptive technique called “severance” is necessary. One has to call a halt, and „sever‟ the connection to time and space. When transferred, the images might just be representations of static cross-sections at that “severing” moment.


Lee, however, magically restores the images of real existence in their full vibrancy. Their movements, postures, and expressions are all magnanimous incarnation of real-life personages beautifully transferred onto the sculptures. They are walking, leaning against the wall or sitting with their hands clasped around the knees, with such detached ambience that they dissociate their self-consciousness from the observer’s scrutiny. There is a delicious mixture of almost tangible languor and equanimity. For one of his compelling works, an old photo taken just after the First World War in Germany of 33 boys in a classroom, was transferred into 33 terracotta boys, with each head cast in plaster. Lee shows how intensively he engaged his imagination in envisaging each boy’s disturbed, perplexed, fragile little hearts. Lee sees more than what is just there. This transcendental perception is Lee’s very Magnum Opus.” - Art in Asia


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[synchronicity] mixed media, 420x235x30cm, 2009