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Reconciliation between Material and Shape

Choi, Taeman_Art Critic

A characteristic found in Lee Jaehyo’s early works is that they do not go against nature. In his works from 0121-1110=191111, a big spherical object which was created by suspending stones gathered from nature in the air, and 0121-1110=193061, a circle in the space made with stones, to 0121-1110=194051, a ball made of grass leaves, we can see his respectful attitude towards nature due to a strong environment-friendliness embedded in his works. Indeed, in the case of 0121-1110=191111, the cohesion of two hemispheres of red and blue may remind us of Soto's pipe work that looks like a figuration of the Great Absolute pattern, while his two other artworks mentioned above may remind us of Andy Goldsworthy’s works. There may be a close likeness in shapes and methods, but that does not compromise the originality of Lee Jaehyo’s works. First of all, in the case of 0121-1110=191111, Soto’s work based on precise calculation starts with an intention to unify time and space, but Lee Jaehyo's work starts with a matter of gravity, such as how this sphere made of heavy stones can and should be suspended in the air. And since his intial interest in gravity is materialized in spheres found in his later works, this work should be considered an experimental indicator for his later works.
Secondly, Andy Goldsworthy was not the only artist who worked in compliance with the
natural ecology. Artists, who were opposed to the idea of surging fetishism and of accelerating commercialization of art, and of treating an art gallery as the last safe haven, tried to find solutions from conceptual performance art or land art, but Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty and Michael Heizer’s large-scaled sculptures in natural areas untrodden by humans have unfortunately raised concerns that these large-scaled, quantitative and violent environmental interventions can rather be extremely detrimental to nature. Artists like Richard Long, Dennis Oppenheim and Andy Goldsworthy have made land art become environment-friendly through artworks that did not abuse nature. We can say that working with materials gathered from nature and letting them return to nature as time passes correspond with the ideology of land art.
Lee Jaehyo’s early works share the critical mind of land artists who befriend nature and follow the flow of nature. And its true meaning can only be achieved when reverence for nature appears. Even if Lee Jaehyo’s works consumed a tremendous amount of time and labor, the first thing that springs to mind from his works is nature. Nature seems chaotic and violent depending on how it is viewed, but Lee Jaehyo finds the source of autogeny in a sphere. A circle is a figure closely and symbolically related to co-existence, integrity and the ground of all beings. When this circle is materialized into a body, it becomes a sphere. Therefore, the symbolic representation that a grain of all livings originating from this basic rounded body is the starting point of spheres which continue to appear in his works.

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Resurgence of Faktura, Manifestation of Material
Lee Jaehyo generally uses wood and steel for his art pieces. When these materials remain as they were, they are merely objet trouve or presentation of nature as ``something raw'' which can be seen in Arte Povera. But he inputs so much labor that an expression like 'ill-treatment of materials' seems humble and struggles with those materials. And the results are shapes of simple primary structure such as spheres, hemispheres and a cubic figure. As this structure repeatedly multiplies similar shapes just like somatic cell division does, it often is plausible to think that his interest may be linked to Minimalism. We also can say that he goes against nature when this excessive labor put into materials and fixed shapes remind us of artificiality rather than naturalness. But when we give another look at his work, we will realize that he is not dismantling the characteristics of materials by processing them, but putting an emphasis on their vivid texture. This kind of work process reminds us of faktura.
The term, faktura, which means ‘architectural,’ ‘structural,’ and ‘contructional,’ is a notion proliferated by Russian avant-garde artists. The word was first used by David Burliuk and Mikhail Larionov in 1912, and then by Kasimir Malevich, El Lissitky, Lyubov Popova, and Valdimir Tatlin.
Since the Russian Revolution, with the emergence of productivism theorists, the term faktura along with a Latin word, tectonic, meaning production method, became one of main concepts of Constructivism. A Constructivism artist and theorist, Alexei Gan, in his book <Constructivim> published in 1922, eventually defined faktura as 'the whole process of handling materials' and tectonic as 'the principle for guiding the practice of constructivists in pursuit of colligation of new contents and modes. At that time, to Russian avant-garde artists, faktura and tectonic were used to explain dialectical process of Socialist art. But in spite of a socialist ideology of Russian constructivists aspiring to be utilitarians and productivists to actualize natural characteristics of materials, the idea of having to preserve unique conditions of materials in the process of production indeed inspired modern artists who wanted to bring the materials into prominence in later times. In this respect, Minimalism apparently was influenced by Russian Constructivism.
Faktura is resurging in Lee Jaehyo’s work as well. The process of sawing surface of wood using a chain-saw in order to produce a spherical shape is artificial, but through the process, a unique characteristic of wood is fully revealed. To produce a spherical shape, he first had to pile up woods and fasten them together. But the protrusion of nails and steels used to fasten them together was a problem he had to solve. And in the end, the original usage of nails evolved into an integral part of the work. Here he explains how wood work evolved into nail work.
“... On the contrary, I now put an emphasis only on nails. I drive countless nails into wood, bend them, grind them, and then burn the wood, making nails protrude and at the same time blackening its growth ring and natural color. Then glittering metallic nails on the blackened charcoal become ever more conspicuous.”
Whether it is about piling up woods and sawing their surfaces to create a sphere, or about driving countless nails into wood and then burning the wood and grinding and then protruding nails, all the processes require a huge amount of labor corresponding to emptying his own self. Emptying himself does not mean the absence of the artist. Through the process of self-effacement, his existence is not assimilated into his work, but distancing himself from it in order to enhance the lucidity of its shape. However, the concreteness of its shape once again experiences the process of dialectic change by the surface of its construction. In other words, the characteristics of materials are not removed by their shape, but materials and shapes are merged while maintaining their essence. What we can find here is that the shape manifests the substance.

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Victory of Labor
Let us rearrange characteristics which appear in Lee Jaehyo’s works. He attaches importance to traces and results formed in the process of repeated labor. A firm shape is the result of his own directivity. In order to maximize characteristics of materials, however, he minimizes their shape into something geometric. Therefore, in the case of wood, he reveals the growth ring to put an emphasis on vivid texture of wood, and in the case of steel, he grinds the surface of steel as clear as crystal to reveal its texture. However, as the characteristics of materials are fully revealed, the texture constituting the geometric cubic figure gets clearer, often resulting in concealing materials.
Lee gathers thick or thin branches in order to create a sphere or drives countless nails into wood, and then burns the wood and grinds protruding nails. This close-to-paranoidal process of production can conceal the fact that the core of the work is in the material, and moreover since the result is revealed in a spherical or cubical shape that is unrecoverable, the material is hidden and shape is completely projected. Lee Jaehyo’s cubic figure suggests Minimalism. Associating his works with Minimalism is not aimed at evaluating their value. Rather, it is mentioned as one of bases for objective interpretation of characteristics revealed in his works. Hence, in order to reveal the material, Minimalism vividly revives the term ‘faktura’ from Russian Constructivism by erasing the existence of the artist from his works, but on the other hand, Lee Jaehyo not only shows the traces of the labor put into the working process, but also through the complicated and dense surface created by wispy structure that constitutes a cubic figure or nails polished with a grinder, he can come to a conclusion that he is not interested in Minimalism.
Nevertheless, his works quietly encounter with Minimalism in that he minimizes the possibilities of repetition and multiplication of an identical cubic shape, emphasis on physical properties and the artist’s subjectivity. When the shape passes ahead of the material, the material does not disappear into the structure of the shape, but projected out of its surface. In this sense, such a theory should be sublated. Here we can see collision of shape and material. This collision can become a factor that hinders people from understanding the whole when attempting to interpret it from a single aspect; shape or material. It is because these two are dialectically meshed with each other. The amount of labor may not necessarily guarantee the victory of shape. Rather, the labor solidifies characteristics of material. But what reconciles the two is labor. What we see in the end is the victory of labor.

Return to Nature
When we look at shapes created by Lee Jaehyo, we can see a transformed sphere embodied with perfect circles, hooped circles and disks. Although they may be cubic figures, many have twists and turns, lacking geometric perfectness. Moreover, a few of his recent art works have growing shapes that look like a growing tree. Compared to a solid body which is perspicuous and not superfluous, this kind of work involves sensitivity. And the complexity of structure that constitutes the shape, in comparison with a cubic figure which is cold, impersonal and inorganic, arouses sentiment for beauty. “I certainly do not have the power to make the world beautiful. I just hope to make those things that are seen beautiful,” he confesses.
A small object can be beautiful depending on our perspective, but if it is not aligned, its intensity would only be minimal. He is looking for the law of this alignment in nature. The more amount of labor is invested and the higher the intensity rises, the more he wants to return to nature. To the world with an order out of complexity, not to the one left unattended. In consequence, for Lee, nature is neither a subject of confrontation, nor of subjugation and domination, but is the precious source and reason that he needs to learn for his work. When we show respect for nature, it then becomes a place of reconciliation between materials and shapes, not a stage of confrontation. For an artist, it is both a blessing and a mission to have abilities to make that possible.