PROFILE

ANTONIO QUATTRINI

pROFILE

ILLUSTRATIONS opposite page - "Dunaroriooo" left - "Komeinyaooo"

below l. to r. - "A Noonday Demon" - "Kokyuroruuu"

Chang Hyun Bang

orn in Korea, ceramicist Bang, Chang Hyun studied ceramics and English language and literature at KyungHee University and continued his studies (a masters in ceramics) at the State University of New York, New Paltz. Bang was a literature student devoted to practicing novels in his mid-20s, dreaming of becoming a novelist. His career later helped him form his own distinctive visual grammar in his creative activities as a potter. Based on literary imagination, metaphor and symbol, Bang leads viewers to empathy with his personied swine characters. Bang employs expressionist content and minimalist visual elements in his work. His work represents the gaze at his soul through recollections of the past in unique narratives. Employing a dramatic narrative structure in which a swine appears as protagonist, Bang acutely captures our diverse daily emotions - depression, anxiety, desire, obsession, loss, hallucination, horror - from the viewpoint of an animal. His small, cute swine characters echo viewers who think of them logically and rationally as weak, poor animals. Viewers obsessed with the pigs come to contrast their own life with that of the pigs cast in a dark shadow. "At my third solo show in New York I noticed a viewer shedding tears, seeing a swine that hangs itself. This is a most memorable moment, and makes me work on as an artist." (artist interview) We usually fear confessing negative, non-daily feelings. Arent our lives a continuation of taking the others gaze, and waiting for the others appraisal, in a space others want? Bangs fth solo
26

Metaphoric Architecture and Swine Body Language

Noel Sewell

childhood and his unconsciousness. Two hogs appear in this work. Which one is a demon? "My desire was more dreadful than my childhood memory of losing her." (artist statement) The two hogs engaging in a sexual intercourse are fragments of his past loss and a wound carved in his brain. Bang discovers himself peeping at past images in the fearful memories governing his many nights of insomnia. The demon is the artist himself. The artist brings viewers to his work without concretizing or identifying the demon. This work represents self-denial, self-contradiction, and loss of objectivity. A night is for the artist a space manifesting his feelings accumulated unconsciously in his relation with the world through becoming an animal. In the space and time of night any categorized value that has sustained human civilization and society is deconstructed. This space, represented by architectural structures, is not an existent physical space but a oating space relying on his memory and is indenable, and a phenomenological space, where new language is generated through an encounter between the artist and the world. "Night is when these feelings most revitalize. My desire, covered by daytime consciousness, ancient

exhibition, My nights are more beautiful than your days at the Insa Art Center, Seoul, is an extension of his other show Wednesday Morning 3 AM held in New York. Even though the artist could not sleep at night to compensate for exhaustion and busyness, why did the artist say night is more beautiful than day? Komeinyaooo and Komororuuu are works inspired by Gongmudohaga (You do not cross the river), a song from ancient times encapsulating Korean peoples indigenous emotions, like parting, death, and sentiment. A swine in this work is submerged under water, but has no intention to escape. Water in Bangs work symbolizes a psychological situation. It is also an emblematic element of contemporary peoples depression and anxiety. In Dunaroriooo and Demosirorooo, oral patterns are engraved on a pigs skin. "Flowers are beautiful, but ower patterns give me compulsive memories and horrors. Id like to love owers, but I can survive only if I forget them, and remain insensitive to the owers engraved on my body." (artist statement) The more he loves owers, the more he has obsessive memories and horrors. He intends to delete love from his heart with the mechanisms of insensibility and oblivion. He is obsessed with the irresistible idea of someone trying to deprive him of his love for owers. His illogical fear and horror is represented through his antinomic visual language of the ower-tattoo. In A Noonday Demon, the artist unveils trauma hidden behind memories of his
27

NEW CERAMICS

NOVEMBER / DEcEMBER 2010

NOVEMBER / DEZEMBER 2010

NEW CERAMICS

PROFILE

Chang Hyun Bang

pROFILE

ILLUSTRATIONS top l.to r. - "Demosirorooo" - "Demosinarorooo detail"

wounds submerged in the unconscious, and unknown anxieties, reveal their entities in my night space.(artist statement) The artist becomes an unfamiliar observer of his feelings, which gives birth to his work. Bang unveils the mechanisms of customs, norms, desires, and power, suppressing himself in language produced through correlations between architecture and swine. Some pieces displayed at the exhibition signify a psychological state through deformed swine bodies. In Selsh Gravity a swine body represents a state of lethargy caused by trauma, while Sleepwalkers associates contemporary humans walking at night, relying on long, pointed legs like a needle. In Oxygen Shadow the artist is captivated by unfamiliar yet mystic senses in a harsh reality.

"There is an unfamiliar and mystic sense I felt intermittently even in extreme depression. At the moment my body becomes wind and a cloud enters my body, I can meet her within me again." (artist statement) This mystic sense within him all of a sudden is the world he meets her without feeling fearful memories and future anxieties. This sense stays for a while and soon disappears. In Sizrabeeee a pig chooses death. While the swine death referred merely to a fear in his solo show Wednesday Morning 3 AM, death in this exhibition is interpreted as a return to absence, loss of presence, or expansion of present existence. Days governed by reason and logic are in contrast with his nights overshadowed by insomnia, depression, and self-contradiction. Based on a literary imagination, Bangs work is a trailblazer of narrative sculpture rarely executed in contemporary ceramics. Dening human reason as a means of self-deception, the artist seeking ataraxia of purest feelings, positions himself as one of the most signicant artists in the international ceramic world.
Noel Sewell, independent curator, critic

Chang Hyun Bang besuche von 1993-1002 die Kyung Hee University in Suwon, Korea, wo er zuerst Englisch und Literatur studierte, mit Abschluss Bachelar of Art (BA) und anschlieend Keramik mit Abschluss Bachelor of Fine Art (BFA). Von 2003-2005 leitete er das Vahns Ceramics Institute in Bundang, Korea und ging 2005 in die USA, wo er bis 2007 an der State University of New York (SUNY), New Paltz, NY seine keramischen Studien fortsetzte und mit dem Master of Fine Art (MFA) abschloss. Bis 2008 erhielt er Lehrauftrge an der State University of New York. Seit 2009 ist er auerordentlicher Professor an der Kyung Hee University, Suwon, Korea. Seit 2002 stellt Bang, Chang Hyon seine Arbeiten in Solo- und Gruppenausstellungen aus. Sie finden sich in Sammlungen in Korea und den USA. Chang Hyun Bang # 111-1304, Apt, Sang Hyun2 - dong Suji-gu, Youngin-si Kyunggi-do South Korea, 448-130 happypig73@gmail.com http://happypig73.wordpress.com/

28

NEW CERAMICS

NOVEMBER / DEcEMBER 2010

NOVEMBER / DEZEMBER 2010

NEW CERAMICS

29