[평론] a taste (of death)

Jung Hee Choi

Over the past twenty five years, the work of Mr. Jin Sik Shin has included computer art, conceptual art, performance, painting, and interactive mixed media installations.

Shin's interest in new media began to surface in his twenties when he first edited and published The Street Paper, a periodical that may be one of the most significant avant-garde art journals in Korea.

His focus on new media continued to evolve and since his solo show, "Computer Art Performance" at the French Cultural Center in 1985, Shin's artistic and professional career has focused on computer technology as a medium of artistic expression. That exhibition was the first in Korea to focus on this new use of computers in the arts and further demonstrated that his interest was not simply to investigate the technology but rather to play with it.

From the beginning it was clear that he wanted to share the creative process with the audience while it is happening. As we can see in the titles of his early works such as "Let's Play with Toilet Rolls"(1985) and "Interactive Art"(1992). participation of the audience plays an important role in his work. His participational from the outside world into his meditative state of mind. Nevertheless, his door is inviting and accessible. The door is open near to the ground and yet the passage leads to a high experience. It does not require much effort to jump in. Shin's works are playful even though they are conceptual in nature and evolved from a more cerebral background.

Shin uses new media and technology as a technique to lead the audience to travel on spiral path. The spiral is a combination of a rectilinear and a circular motion described by polar coordinates as seen in such examples of natural forms as DNA, galaxies and nautilus shells. The works in this exhibition, A Taste (of Death), reflect multidimensional aspects of life within a helical structure. Each piece demonstrates the repetition of an organic object, mostly the suggestive female figure, which appears to be broken up and irregular on all scale sizes. Each of the broken images is derived from the original object and the resulting overall image possesses the idealized infinite detail of self-similar structure.

Not only in form but also in concept, Shin's work mainfests a spiral process that involves continuously interrelated experiences of low and high, primal and intellectual, and secular and spiritual. Through such a process, the opposites define one another and are mutually indispensable, suggestive of a synaptic leap in charged field between the polar coordinates. November 2005 ■

Jung Hee Choi is an artist working in a variety of contemporary media with several solo and group shows in New York City, Germany and Korea. Choi's video sound work, RICE was chosen as one of the 10 Best of 2003 in the Artforum by Chrissie Iles, curator of the Whitney Museum, New York. Choi is the founding producer and director for MantraTV, a cable and webcast vehicle for advanced arts. Choi is disciple of La Mont Young and Marian Zazeela in the study of music and art. She is a vocalist in their group, The Just Alap Raga Ensemble, and has collaborated with Young and Zazeela to produce long-term video documentation of their lives and work, Including the Dream House and affiliated events.

전시제목신진식展 '(죽음의) 맛 a taste (of death)'

전시기간2005.12.07(수) - 2005.12.13(화)

참여작가 신진식

초대일시2005년 12월 07일 수요일 05:00pm

관람시간10:00am - 06:00pm

휴관일없음

장르회화와 조각

관람료무료

장소김진혜갤러리 Kim Jin Hye Gallery (서울 종로구 인사동 149 2,3층)

연락처02-725-6751