[Artist] Sang Taek Oh | 오상택

Good(s) for Human

series I: an actress' closet

2017. 12. 8 (금) - 2018. 1. 26 (금)

 

No. 164 (2017), photographic color print on canvas, 95x150cm

 

“It is an Invention to Dress a Man, as if he lived in a perpetual Spring;

he never sees the autumn of his Cloaths”

​Discourse of Trade, Nicholas Barbon 1690.

 

Clothes that have given the status of 'fashion' today are an undeniable temptation, especially to women. Social symbols, power, and widespread narcissistic illusions about clothes make us forget reality.

 

GalleryJJ has organized a solo exhibition of photographer Sang Taek Oh, who metaphorically expresses the contemporary with materials such as clothes and closets, and delves into fiction and reality within familiarity. The ‘Closet’ series induces a rather unfamiliar visual experience, with its concise black and white imagery, as it is mixed with reality and romantic fiction, as well as such inner manifestation. The image that metaphors and aptly harmonize the objectivity and the fiction of photographic medium and real objects arises to beauty. It stimulates the sensibility of the contemporary, which causes the viewer to think about various reasons beyond the image. His 'Closet' series has already been recognized internationally and has been collected by many museums and well received by collectors. In his work, clothing, an entity we are accustomed to, displays its own aura of existence at the cross line between its nature as an object and customs given by society, in which it reveals another appearance that we may not have seen in the meantime.

 

This is a solo exhibition of the artist in about three years, and it consists of his recent work expressing with clothes newly photographed as the extension of the 'Closet' series. Through the white closet, and the new composition and expression attempts, another narrative is created, showing a more mature and multifarious world. ‘An Actress’ Closet’ is the first in his 'Good(s) For Human' series, and we already look forward to the following stories ahead. The exhibition title 'Good(s) For Human' has a dual meaning of welfare or commodity. In addition, by naming an anonymous actress as a subtitle, she blurs the boundaries between reality and imagination and conceals the fact that it is a product of fiction. On the other hand, directing the exhibition space to some extent, the drama and fantasy elements from the stage of the wardrobe in his work are extended to the real space. Thus, audiences will engage in a more unfamiliar place and actively participate in the ‘actress' wardrobe peeking’, which may be a private and secret area of the individual.

 

Post-Narcissism

A white dress is swaying in a large frame. Taking a picture of an object is an act that takes it away from its meaning, according to Roland Barthes. The artist photographs real clothes. Any photographed object gains the fact that it was there at the moment it entered the camera lens. Although the object in the frame has a sense of reality due to a clear index given by the photographic medium, at the same time, through the artist’s work process, and unrealistic sensitivity and ambiguity arise and the secret conversation of the closet begins. The virtual space in which clothes are hung is a closet, but also a kind of atopia (no space). The work never becomes monotonous as the attention is directed to the size and volume of the inflated clothes, the fragility of the shaky rhythm, the ambiguous background like the abyss, and the expression of the painting via using canvas. The artist intentionally turns the direction of the gaze away from the subject. With these elements, a scene of wardrobe puts a contemplative distance from the viewer, abandoning the seamless and seamless visibility of photos and clothes. The audience feels a kind of awe, or something concealed. His photographs become the stage where the narratives of the fantasy unfold. His work is tempting perhaps because a kind of 'Pathos der Distanz' by Nietzsche seems to inhere in it.

 

Alternatively, the image of clothes with a vanished person can stimulate a kind of awe or sense something cloaked from the presence and absence of the subject, and the exposure and disguise in the background. According to Barthes, 'the simultaneous staging of exposition and concealment' is most erotic'. Beauty is a fiction and metaphor in which the word ‘virtual’ (Schein) and ‘beautiful’ (schön) share the same derivation in German. Thus, it is free without purpose. In the virtual realm, clothes are airy and float freely, creating another lyricism or beautiful uncanny which is found in the gap between reality and imagination that we have not found yet. The fullness of foolishness and the beauty of disillusionment… The reasons why photographs of Sang Taek Oh are so beautiful.

 

“Hold on to it! Even if it is not the goddess whom you lost, it is still god-like”

Faust, Goethe

​

The Beginning, Narcissism

The clothes of the artist began as objects of metaphors about the epoch and the desire of modern people. A closet is a place where the intrinsic desire of the mind is found, and to fill the deficiency of oneself. Mass media images act as 'symbols' today, and the symbolic images created by fashion media cannot be overlooked in these fetishized signs or the desire of epoch’ indices. Jacques Lacan's reasons that 'the inherent desire of the subject cannot exist, and desire is always the others', so that self is a fictional product created through the imaginary identification of the image. Therefore, such self-alienation and the other's gaze are already internalized in us. We may all see a fantastic image of each other. The place where the narcissistic property dominates is the world we live in in which clothing is only the object of consumption. The stratification or authority attributes of the clothes that the artist focuses on are communicated as similar urban and common experiences. It seems clear that men’s authoritative suits and the women’s delicate dresses that he photographs resonate with the gender’s ideological role and social persona. Furthermore, the reference to women’s clothes and the innocence of white clothes reveals the collective fetish of our society.

 

However, his work has a different atmosphere that obscures the sense of reality and meaning. Colossal luxury clothes in virtual space - the clothes seem to exist but cannot wear, and perhaps it is unobtainable or not. Although the artist is releasing the story of our lives with the personified material, the gap between emotional and meaningful acts becomes unfamiliarity of familiarity. The artist seeks to capture both realism and heterogeneity at the same time. The clothes of Sang Taek Oh are no longer objects of consumption but objects of contemplation, towards Post-Narcissism.​

Ju Yeon Kang

Director Gallery JJ

Translated by Brett D.H.Lee

Instagram: @brettdhlee

@galleryjjseoul

 

www.galleryjj.org/project-24-press-release

갤러리JJ｜GalleryJJ｜오상택: Good(s) For Human | Series I : an actress’ closet

 

 

Education

1996     M.F.A. 샌프란시스코예술대학교 (San Francisco Art Institute) 사진과 대학

             원 졸업

1994     B.F.A. 시카고예술대학교 (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) 사진과

             졸업

1990     서울예술대학 (Seoul Institute of Arts) 사진과 졸업

             現 서울예술대학교 예술사진전공 교수

 

Solo Exhibitions

2015     Good(s) for Human, KDB대우증권 Art Space, 서울

2014     (un)Necessaries, OCBC Bank Ochard Gateway collection, 싱가폴

2014     Closets, 서울예술대학교 Gallery, 경기도

2013     Closets, 예화랑, 서울

2013     (un)Necessaries, Taksu Gallery, 싱가폴 & 발리

2012     (un)Necessaries, 분도갤러리, 대구

2011     Modern Life, 서울대학교미술관, 서울

2010     City Romance, Trunk Gallery, 서울

2008     Sports Brain Factory, 서울

2008     Process(2008 Contact Photo Festival), Lee KaSing Gallery, 토론토, 캐나다

2007     Process, 인사아트센터, 서울

2005     Necessaries, 주영화랑, 서울

1999     SelfPortrait, 샘터화랑, 서울

1996     SelfPortrait, Diego Rivera Gallery, 샌프란시스코, 미국 

​

Group Exhibitions

2016     It’s all about movement(collaboration with BMW), COEX, 서울

             Korean Art Now II, Susan Eley Fine Art, 뉴욕, 미국

             Art in Fashion, 센텀시티, 부산

2015     구인전, 분도갤러리, 대구

2014     ClothingTelling, 아트스페이스J, 경기도

2013     New Waves, Korea Taksu Gallery, 싱가폴 & 쿠알라룸프르, 말레이시아

             UnderTone, Taksu Gallery, 싱가폴

2012     The Rule of reproduction I, Gallery조선, 서울

             Open Mind KOTRA, Open Gallery, 서울

             S C A G, SCAG Gallery, 서울

             Nasi Campur, Taksu Gallery, 싱가폴

2011     NoW _ Here, 중남미문화원, 부에노스 아이레스, 아르헨티나

             Sports Fantasy(오상택 변대용 2인전), 서울올림픽기념관, 서울

2010     Fashion or Passion(오상택 최지영 2인전), Gallery Prior’s, 서울

2009     정직한 거짓말, 자하미술관, 서울

             NanJi Air Project3, 서울시립미술관 난지미술창작스튜디오, 서울

             인천아트플렛폼 개관기획전 ‘다시 개항’, 인천아트플렛폼, 인천

             송은미술대상전, 인사아트센터, 서울

             The White Shirt, LG플래그십 컬쳐스페이스, 서울

             Photo Korea 2009 ‘Shooting Image’, 서울COEX 장보고Hall, 서울

             21c 신실크로드, 주중한국문화원, 북경, 중국

             Fleeting, 서울대미술관, 서울

             1st Anniversary Exhibition, 10 corso como, 서울

2008     서울국제사진페스티벌 본전(Humanscape), (구)서울역사, 서울

             파괴 그리고 희망, 청파갤러리, 서울 & 주영한국문화원, 런던, 영국

             China Pingyao International Photography Festival, 핑야오, 중국

             한국현대사진60년, 국립현대미술관, 과천

             The 809 International New Image Art Festival, 이창, 중국

             찾아가는 미술관, 국립현대미술관, 과천

             Home & Away, 국립창작스튜디오 고양 전시관, 고양

             Long Day’s Journey (오상택 차소림 2인전), Lee C Gallery, 서울

2007     Intro 展, 국립창작스튜디오 고양 전시관, 고양

             견고한 장면, ArtBit Gallery, 서울

             G+Screening Photography from Korea, INDEXG, 토론토, 캐나다

2006    사람, 사람들, 인사아트센터, 서울

            Spotlight 30 Women, Paper Tainer Museum, 서울

 

Awards

2009     제9회 송은미술상 수상

2009     2009 단원미술대전 수상

​

Publications

2012     The Rule of reproduction I, Gallery 조선 출판

2010     City Romance & Process, Publishing BODA

​

Collections

국립현대미술관 미술은행, 서울시립미술관, 서울대학교미술관, 아모레퍼시픽미술관,

경기도미술관, 인천문화재단, 대구문화예술회관, OCBC Bank Art Collection 싱가폴 외 다수.