Eve Kwak, Mountain in the Back, River Up Front - Upright, 2010, Cement, Dimension variable © Eve Kwak

1. Mountain in the Back, River Up Front

Title of the work. This work is subdivided into ‘Support’, ‘Even If Broken’, and ‘Upright’. Baesanimsu refers to facing water with a mountain behind one’s back, and as the most ideal method of selecting a residential site, it fulfills the primal conditions of life.

According to the artist, this work began from the sight of “excess,” in which several birdhouses were densely clustered on a single tree despite the fact that similar trees were lined up nearby. For the birds, that place is a “propitious site.” Then what would be a propitious site for us? Perhaps it is a high-rise apartment building rising on a fixed plot of land.


2. Apartment Floor Plan

As the object of “excess,” the artist chooses the apartment. More precisely, she chooses the apartment floor plan. The apartment floor plan selected by the artist belongs to a famous brand. It is a place toward which people’s aspirations are highest. Yet the artist does not make any value judgment about it. She is simply giving it her “attention.”

To quote the artist: “For me, my interest in floor plans began when I was young, looking at floor plans printed on advertising leaflets inserted between newspapers as if I were looking at pictures. I would imagine this and that while looking at the color-filled surfaces, as if they were becoming real spaces. The apartment form in Mountain in the Back, River Up Front was made three-dimensional by giving the floor plan an appropriate height.

I thought that if floor plans were stacked layer by layer, they might become an apartment building. I make the work by setting up a frame along the entire outer contour of the floor plan and pouring cement into it. In this way, regardless of the structure drawn inside the floor plan, the work becomes a sculpture with its interior space completely filled, and the outer form is determined as it is.

In fact, what I enjoyed looking at in floor plans was the interior space, but the way such detailed interior structures are omitted and rendered useless seems to reveal more clearly the impression I feel from the object now. In other words, going through the process of laying a foundation, erecting a structure, making formwork, and building walls as if an actual building were being made had no meaning here. I am containing the form of an existing apartment, not making an architectural building called an apartment.”


3. Cement

The material of Mountain in the Back, River Up Front, which stacks apartment floor plans. Yet this material is used differently from its original properties. Cement usually gains strong durability when mixed with other substances. In her work, however, it becomes a fragile, delicate material that is easily damaged. The artist actively uses this characteristic of cement in her work.

She completes the work while responding to the changing state of the material and to the process itself. To quote the artist: “I did not expect the sculpture to break, but once it actually broke, I attached it back together as if it were natural, so that it could maintain its form. I thought it was extremely appropriate.

An apartment building shows a dense population through its height, but because there is a process in which an intact form breaks and then returns to its original form, it makes one think about that dense form, and the will and feelings of people seem to be emphasized even more.”


4. Height

For the artist, height is a condition that carries symbolism. Therefore, how high something is does not matter. What matters to her is not height itself, but the emotional tension created by height and material. Even If Broken contains various heights. Support is about mass, and all its elements have the same height. Upright sets its height by converting the actual square footage of the floor plan into centimeters.

The artist sets the height. Then she works laboriously up to that height. In this process, her work becomes an exploration of the formal aspects created by height and material. Depending on the properties of the material and the method of production, the sculptures naturally form their sculptural qualities as they lean and break.


5. Support

There are three works based on the theme of Mountain in the Back, River Up Front: Mountain in the Back, River Up Front - Even If Broken, Mountain in the Back, River Up Front - Support, and Mountain in the Back, River Up Front - Upright. Among this sequence, the finest work is Mountain in the Back, River Up Front - Support. In this work, the height of the cement and the length of the core are all the same.

Only the thickness differs. In other words, this work is a sculptural response to the state of tension that occurs between the thickness of the cement and the core. In order for the sculpture to be sturdy, a core is necessary, but as the core bends, the structure also bends. In the end, it becomes impossible to know which is supporting which.

And this, in turn, leans against the wall. One could say that the wall supports the core, or that the core supports the wall. One could also say that the cement structure supports the wall.

References