< Serene Days >, Empty space of everything

July 2, 2021 - July 22, 2021

JUNG Eunjung

There is a picture that allows to meet fullywith ‘now’ and ‘me’. Instead of specifying ‘something’ within a photograph, itis a photograph that focuses on the relationship between ‘something’ and ‘me.’When that ‘something’ is an object or landscape, it is ‘me’ of ‘now’ that pays attention to this relationship. As I get the gaze, it is also my responsibility to fill in the void of a meaning. In front of this photo, ‘I’ always have toface ‘me’ of the present. It is an ’empty moment’ that stops ‘me,’ who is chased by ‘that time’ of the past or ‘that day’ of the future and endlessly running away from the countless ‘present.’ Silence grows in empty space of everything, and silence reveals the reality of existence to the very bottom.

Kyungja Jeong’s “Serene Days” lets me look into “myself” as a human being in this noisy silence, which is constricting due to the silenceforced by the COVID-19 pandemic and distant due to the agreed distancing. Whilethe civilization, which has been advancing straight ahead and bordering oneverything with power and technology, flinches, it brings ‘me’ and ‘us’ to meetin the relationship between humans and nature. The artist shows human space that is obscured, blocked, and closed, and open nature that changes and circulates. In addition, she has captured in a snapshot traces of humans, who desire and possess nature even though we are a part of mother nature, within the huge but insignificant time and space of everyday lives. She catches gazes of the audience looking at photos through a narrative method that weaves a series ofphotos with the gazes by separating passing objects and the world in a uniqueway.

From “Mirror in the Mirror (spiegel im spiegel, 2000)” series to recent “Nevertheless (2021)” series, Kyungja Jeong has never lost ‘me’ in her photos. She stops her camera on what I feel and sense and do not hesitate to press the shutter even if its meaning cannot be defined. She focuses on the ‘individual’ rather than the society, on indifferent objects rather than big events, and on the finite time of  human rather than the dream of ‘eternity.’ As she accepts the extinction of existence, she concentrates on today’s ‘present’ rather than yesterday’s memories or tomorrow’s expectations. Since the ‘present’ is every moment, there is no unchanging relationship or fixed meaning. Even when shooting, and looking at photos, you just meet “me” of that moment.

The artist creates her own dictionary with images of which meanings are ambiguous but that make us sense clearly, taking out her photos in different ways every exhibition and unfolding her stories. In ‘Story within a Story (2013),’ which focuses on the relationship between ‘me’ and everyday objects, and ‘Speaking of Now (2015),’ which deals with the relationship between daily time and death, each sentence has been formed with a couple of photos. configured one. Also, in ‘Elegant Town (2016),’ which concentrates on the relationship between individuals and urban space, two photos have been edited into one panoramic photo to make one sentence. Unlike other dictionaries,Kyungja Jeong’s does not ‘define’ the world, but only leads to it.

Jeong Kyungja, 'Story within a Story_27,' 2011, Digital pigment print, 100 x 100 cm.

The exhibition is a compilation of “Nevertheless” series that views the current pandemic spreading anxiety and fear as nature’s time and “So, Suite (2019)” that collects memories of a space, not human, in a hotel which is a human space and disappeared after 25 years. Therefore, she views troubled human time with unexpected ordeal as the time of resolute nature and pursues seemingly endless human desires for eternity and nature in the vanishing human space. It starts with the story of ‘me’ in daily life during the pandemic and expands to the reflection of the ‘world’ on the impact of actions of finitehuman as living organisms in nature on nature itself and all ecology.

The first thing you encounter as soon as you enter the exhibitionhall is a photograph of a rubber tree hunched due to the cold indoors, and the story of ‘Serene Days’ advances to a photograph of a closed window with a curtain folded because it is much longer than the length of the door. In the two equally sized photos hung on the way out of the exhibition hall, the snowy mountain shines during the day and the industrial lights illuminate the night.There are no human beings who can project clear emotions, and no events that can lead to clear narratives. The objects inside the space lead to a closed world, the high mountains and wide sea collide with nature in the small indoor landscape painting, and the green organisms trapped in the botanical garden can not penetrate the glass and reinforcing bars of the greenhouse that reflects outside.

The artist does not distinguish between “Nevertheless” and “So,Suite” series in the exhibition. However, if we are to examine it, the scenes related to the reality of nature are the “Nevertheless” series while the scenes related to the artificial reality that mimics nature are the “So, Suite”series. ‘Serene Days,’ where nature and man-made things coexist large and small, resembles atmospheres of human civilizations, which divide nature and expand their realm limitlessly. They pursue nature but move away from it, imitate but destroy it, and try to dominate the whole while being a part. It is a world in which humans, connected with all species of the earth, have divided one world into two, yet the realm of humans is a finite world that is in evitably a part of nature.

The natural world of the “Nevertheless” series includes cherry blossoms, trees with fallen leaves, winter mountains that brush white snow, and the oceans where waves do not stop rolling in, along with the sky. Everything changes by repeating emptying and filling over time without a single thing in place. On the other hand, the human world of the “So, Suite” series is flashed by velvet-lined furniture and curtains, and carpeted walls and floors divide the space. If velvet and carpets are artificial products that mimic nature’s furs, potted plants and natural landscapes fringed with bleached sheets or polished furniture are no different from displays of the desires to possess plants and creatures by confining them in glass greenhouses and bottles.

Unlike the previous exhibitions, photos of various sizes selectedfrom each of the “Nevertheless” and “So, Suite” series make a long sentence. Huge nature is downscaled into small photographs, and parts of nature are enlarged into large photographs, breaking away from the perspective of human vision in everyday life. In addition, the views of the ‘hotel’, which has accumulated one-off memories for decades as an artificial space and the transparent greenhouse where the captured nature is nurtured, have been reduced unlike the great desires they harbor. Nature without colors approaches like are mini scence, and the colored human space floats like a fantasy. Some photos become words in this way and other photos become commas; however, there is no period anywhere.

Jeong Kyungja, 'Nevertheless_02,' 2021, Digital pigment print, 100 x 129 cm.

There is a picture that allows to meet fullywith ‘now’ and ‘me’. Instead of specifying ‘something’ within a photograph, itis a photograph that focuses on the relationship between ‘something’ and ‘me.’When that ‘something’ is an object or landscape, it is ‘me’ of ‘now’ that pays attention to this relationship. As I get the gaze, it is also my responsibility to fill in the void of a meaning. In front of this photo, ‘I’ always have toface ‘me’ of the present. It is an ’empty moment’ that stops ‘me,’ who is chased by ‘that time’ of the past or ‘that day’ of the future and endlessly running away from the countless ‘present.’ Silence grows in empty space of everything, and silence reveals the reality of existence to the very bottom.

Kyungja Jeong’s “Serene Days” lets me look into “myself” as a human being in this noisy silence, which is constricting due to the silenceforced by the COVID-19 pandemic and distant due to the agreed distancing. Whilethe civilization, which has been advancing straight ahead and bordering oneverything with power and technology, flinches, it brings ‘me’ and ‘us’ to meetin the relationship between humans and nature. The artist shows human space that is obscured, blocked, and closed, and open nature that changes and circulates. In addition, she has captured in a snapshot traces of humans, who desire and possess nature even though we are a part of mother nature, within the huge but insignificant time and space of everyday lives. She catches gazes of the audience looking at photos through a narrative method that weaves a series ofphotos with the gazes by separating passing objects and the world in a uniqueway.

From “Mirror in the Mirror (spiegel im spiegel, 2000)” series to recent “Nevertheless (2021)” series, Kyungja Jeong has never lost ‘me’ in her photos. She stops her camera on what I feel and sense and do not hesitate to press the shutter even if its meaning cannot be defined. She focuses on the ‘individual’ rather than the society, on indifferent objects rather than big events, and on the finite time of  human rather than the dream of ‘eternity.’ As she accepts the extinction of existence, she concentrates on today’s ‘present’ rather than yesterday’s memories or tomorrow’s expectations. Since the ‘present’ is every moment, there is no unchanging relationship or fixed meaning. Even when shooting, and looking at photos, you just meet “me” of that moment.

The artist creates her own dictionary with images of which meanings are ambiguous but that make us sense clearly, taking out her photos in different ways every exhibition and unfolding her stories. In ‘Story within a Story (2013),’ which focuses on the relationship between ‘me’ and everyday objects, and ‘Speaking of Now (2015),’ which deals with the relationship between daily time and death, each sentence has been formed with a couple of photos. configured one. Also, in ‘Elegant Town (2016),’ which concentrates on the relationship between individuals and urban space, two photos have been edited into one panoramic photo to make one sentence. Unlike other dictionaries,Kyungja Jeong’s does not ‘define’ the world, but only leads to it.

Exhibition view '조용한 날들 : Serene Days'

The artist presents the gazes towards today’s pandemic under the title of ‘Serene Days.’ It is an irony against the days when the world is turbulent and breathless like silence filled with fear, and it is a question about the ‘quiet days’ that will unfold for humans after the pandemic. Rather than affirming with hope or negating it as if broken in despair, the author presents only the repeated aspects of shrinking and unfolding, closing and opening, and being trapped and released. Nevertheless, what is leaked is ‘stepping back’ to look at the situation resolutely like changing nature, and ‘giving up’ an empty space to alleviate fear, dread, and distrust and to take a moment of silence.

There is nothing we should do when we look at the artist’s photos in the exhibition of ‘Serene Days’ or in the photo book that contains her works. However, if you wish to, you can break the boundary between me and photography and enter the empty space given by the artist. Some may consider that pandemics have been repeated in the history of mankind, and today, too, is just a myriad of passing days. Another may take the pandemic as a warning given to humans in the face of the ecological environment and nature that modern civilizations have been frantically destroying. Of course, the answer is unknown, and no one can be certain about the world after this pandemic. Therefore, by silence, we just face the ‘now’ together.

You can meet the reality of everything’s existence in an empty place rather than in a place where they exist. Even if we, who want to fill rather than empty and the space filled rather than empty, find only ‘me’ who runs away from the ‘present’ infinitely at that moment, it is the beginning of reflection and thus the present of reality. Also, if you face the situation and gain insight without running away from the ordeal you encounter at once, you can change and transform, rather than perish in pain that you do not know because you do not wish to know. Even if you recklessly run away from the “present,” the next moment is the “present” again, and you cannot be sure of the “future” you expect to be able to escape from. The only way to live is to always dig into weak ‘me’ of the ‘now’ and the vulnerable ‘world.’