Black Humour: Hwang Hak Sam, Choi Sun, Gabriel Acevedo Velarde
Chapter II Yard is pleased to announce 'Black Humour', a group exhibition by Choi Sun, Hwang Hak Sam and Gabriel Acevedo Velarde, from 14 July to 12 August, 2020.
The ironic possibility of the color Black has connoted often appears all of a sudden from the place where the possibility is fulfilled. The black line marked up densely in censored documents is a trigger for stimulating somebody to make an inference from the hidden incident. The deep darkness of the horizon is a signal that pretty soon the sun rises, and it is also a tacit understanding that the cemetery packed with people in black mourning clothes is about grief for loss is temporary and eventually it will be forgotton. Although the Black, generally referred to as 'the absence of light', is a state of emptiness and a dormant stage, it involves unpredictability as it concealed an energy that can trigger something off.
Choi Sun(b. 1973)’s Black Painting (2015) is achieved by seamlessly applying waste oil onto the surface of a canvas. The waste oil considered as an inartistic material dwells in a state of nothingness composed of a black color essentially absorbing every bit of light; its commercial value has been expired; the possibility of its restoration has been obstructed. By adopting the particularly disparate medium which still maintains an appearance of common art materials, Choi twists painting’s technical substructure in order to push diverse rhetorical statuses demanded on color-field paintings such as concepts, sublime and transcendence, out of a border line.
Hwang Hak Sam(b. 1984)’s roughly manufactured surfaces and distorted full-length or torso figures create an eccentric and grotesque landscape. Also, white layers of the surface sparsely placed on each curve along the outline of a body reduce liveliness of the work, despite some parts revealing a sense of volume. They ultimately play a crucial role of visual indicators notifying that a long time has lapsed since a chain of actions and events occurred. The straightforward and immediate appeal of these elements leads viewers to priorly concentrate on the work’s shape and composition.
Escenario (animation, 3 mins, 2004)' by Peruvian artist, Gabriel Acevedo Velarde (b. 1976) presents a mysterious event taking place in a dark open space with dozens of people. In the video, the children each who go onto a stage in a row are exposed to flash of strong light which causes fainting for a moment. The repetition of the situation can be interpreted as a metaphor that citizens being standardized.
The flickering of the flash of strong light emphasizes the darkness beneath the stage in a moment. At the same time, it increases the tension of act by casting long black shadows of children when they fainted.
