Choi Jae-eun contemplates relationship between human beings and sky

Choi Jae-eun, a Korean artist based in Japan and Germany, is holding an exhibition that offers a fresh perspective on the relationship between human beings and the sky.

The 56-year-old artist is well-known for her philosophical reflection on nature and experimental approach to contemporary art.

Choi explores themes of the finite and infinite and the flow of time at the new exhibition being held at Kukje Gallery in Seoul, representing the ideas through diverse works such as photography, film and installation. 

“What Choi tries to depict is the relationship between the infinity of the sky and the finiteness of humans looking up the sky. Her exhibition means a lot when the contemporary art focuses more on what appears outside and the present time. It’s really important to have an artist who can transform her ideas and concepts into a visual form,” said Yoo Jin-sang, artistic director of the 7th Seoul International Media Art Biennale.

Driven by the sense of the finite and then infinite when looking up at the sky, the artist captured the night sky in Storkow in Germany and combined it with the sounds of the artist walking on a cobblestone street.

The videos of night sky “Finitude” feature movement of the sky for about eight hours from dusk until dawn, letting viewers observe the quiet flow of time that seems almost infinite.

And the sound of footsteps evokes the sense of finiteness as it can be interpreted as the journey of a pilgrim on his way to finding enlightenment or the steps of a poet on a starry night, according to Choi.

“I captured the moment when the finiteness and infinity collide and brought that moment on a screen so that viewers can immerse themselves into it,” said Choi.

In contrast to the night sky, “Verse_Puglia, Italy, 2012” is a collection of 50 photographs taken during sunrise in one-minute intervals, portraying the transformation from a space of darkness to a space of birth.

Impressed by the book culture in Germany where people drop their old books at neighbors’ doorsteps to be shared, the artist started to take words and sentences from old books, writing them on top of the faded blank front pages of the books as a way to portray the accumulation of time.

The exhibition “-verse” continues through Nov. 22 at Kukje Gallery in Samcheong-dong, Seoul. For more information, call (02) 735-8449.

By Lee Woo-young  (wylee@heraldcorp.com)