Osang Gwon

INTERVIEW // Invited by LO/A Library of Arts, contemporary art nowadays in Korea sets up in the Parisian concept store Tom Greyhound. Among a wide range of publications, Osang Gwon’s sculptural photomontages attest the Korean artistic dynamism.

• Why using photo, a 2D plastic element, to build three-dimensional sculptures ?

Osang Gwon : The idea of a photographic sculpture started when I was majoring in sculpture at HongIk University on 1998. I found the classic sculpture materials such as marble, wood, and iron too heavy to work with. Therefore, I thought that using a photograph, which is made out of photographic paper, would be much more simpler and easier to make a sculpture.

• You create full-scale characters seeming to be alienated, fossilized. Is here a denouncing message through your plastic approach ?

Osang Gwon : When a plane of a photographed image is folded and bent into a three-dimensional object, there is a slight distortion. This distortion gives that alienated feeling away from the reality. Image does express its difference away from reality, but that doesn’t mean that it implies such detailed content into my artwork.

• You also realized in your « Flat » series, many installations of pictures accumulations, extracted from magazines. Does this return to the plane surface of paper call into question the notions of presentation and representation ? 

Osang Gwon : « The Flat » is made from cut out magazine images, which are supported by the wire attached on the back of each images. This allows « The Flat » to be able to stand from the floor. My recent photographic sculptures are made from searching images through Google Images and putting these together into an artwork. The question of presenting and representing is one of the issues that I’m dealing with in my artwork.  

• Which relationship can we weave between your artworks and fashion ?

Osang Gwon : My early artworks involve many poses that comes from fashion and advertising. However, the origin of these fashion and advertising poses comes from classical sculpture and painting.

• Actually, you collaborated with Wooyoungmi. How did you feel this experiment ? According to you, does advertising need to be close to the art world ?

Osang Gwon : Collaborating with Wooyoungmi was a great experience. I think that advertisement and promotion are part of the contemporary art world.

• How do you perceive the growing place of the Korean contemporary art ?

Osang Gwon : Korea has a long history and art has always been growing together with its civilization. In my opinion, the increasing complexity of politics and economy is related to the development of the art world. Taking this relationship into consideration, I predict that Korean contemporary art will receive much more global attention in the future. //

Exposition Osang Gwon // Du 13 novembre 2014 au 3 janvier 2015 at Tom Greyhound
19 rue de Saintonge 75003 Paris
www.osang.net