We often imagine that we will win the lottery and become a rich person, or fly in the sky as a bird. Whether it is a happy imagination or not, we have has this capacity to imagine it freely since we were children. Through the process of imagination, we felt amusement and took a comfortable rest from the realities of our life. However, as we grew older, the frequency of our imagination decreased and our ideas of imagination changed. The imagination, which was free, sweet, and sometimes defiant, changed into a useless one. Parents or elders often say that imagination is just a illusion and a flight from reality, and we must face reality.
However, there is an exhibition, which says imagination is not negative. This exhibition, named ‘The Some Imagination’, is a group-painting exhibition. Four artists took part in the exhibition. The ‘Project Team CUBE’, an art project organization, made this exhibition’s plan. They came together to give spectators a chance to think about the imagination differently.
The exhibition, which breaks our notions of imagination, pays attention to imagination’s positive aspects. According to the exhibition’s opinion, a dream or imagination is not just a hideout, but also our own worldwide festival. The imagination can help us escape from the hardships of every day life, which can also be repetitive and boring. Mechanized modern people can find an ‘oasis’ to their barren life through imagination. Imagination, which gives us enjoyment and makes us get rid of the stress of a mechanical life, has a special value by itself.
At other times, it shows the possibility of progress. Many historic discoveries, inventions and technological progresses were carried out by a passionate imagination. Columbus discovered the New World thanks to his imagination and dreams about the mysterious Orient world. The Wright brothers’ ‘foolish idea’ that they wanted to fly began the era of aviation. Besides, a fearless imagination about the unreasonable and taboo realities of life can became a generative power of reformation. The four artists in this exhibition, also, tried to break their ‘rigid life’ and find hopeful possibilities.

Seo, Sang Ik

Sunday p.m 4:00 (2007)
Seo, Sang Ik has made a surrealistic canvass through a method that inserts an alien object to everyday space. In her artwork titled, ‘Sunday pm 4:00’ (2007), a male lion is retiring on a bed in a very familiar room. In ‘Use Your Illusion’ (2007), there is a world famous guitarist, who is playing the guitar in a small and ordinary room. Although these situations do not normally occur, she stressed the sense of the real through a practical depiction. The lion’s mane looked like a soft, and a wrinkled quilt, which make we want to try touching it, and a guitarist, who has a serious expression with a cigarette in his mouth, is making us feel as if these pictures are real. The excessive realistic depiction reflects her earnest wish.

Kim, Ji Hee

Hush! (2007)

Kim, Ji Hee expresses her deviation or achievement of desire with the image of woman who has a horse’s head. The horse’s head is a mask in her artwork. Through putting on the mask, she can free herself from the rules and taboos of today. ‘Hush!’ (2007) and ‘Will You Join Us’ (2007) show a woman, who is sexual and greedy. Kim, Ji Hee says that women in her artwork are fancy deviations of a tedious everyday life and the horse’s head symbolizes a meaning of sexual appetite. In the artwork, the man and woman’s sensual figures, and horse’s inflamed eyes are plainly expressing human’s hidden desire.

Seo, Go-un

The projective modification (2007)
Seo, Go-un searched for a point of contact between a dream and reality in her artwork. In her pictures, we can feel a dreamlike quality, and objects deviate from conventional locations and are converted from their original appearance into a new one. In ‘The Projective Modification’ (2007), a green bird, which has wings shaped like human hands, is perching on a chair. In the back of the chair, there is a dreadfully hanging. The bird, which cannot fly anymore, and a noose are betraying the artist’s feelings of a particular daily predicament. Seo thinks, through imagination, we can see circumstances without ceremony and take out our hidden anxieties.

Kim, Myeong Hwa
Some toys and dolls appear in the artwork of Kim, Myeong Hwa. We usually regard them as pure and a symbol of the mind of a child. However, the meaning of her toys and dolls, which are painted in sweet colors are reversed in the artwork. In her artworks, ‘A Girl Who Envies Shyness’ (2007) and ‘07008’ (2007), a girl doll gets jammed into a strawberry and a toy airplane collides with a cake. Bright and splendid colors contrast with ridiculous situations. These contradictory imagines suggest that the reality of keeping a pure mind is hard to do.

07008 (2007)

The exhibition ‘The Some Imagination’ asks modern persons what imagination means in their everyday life and what their imagination is. Imaginative images which art works express stimulate the spectator’s imaginative power and helps spectators to interpret artwork. Einstein was regarded as one of the leading scientists of this century; he said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Imagination is a privilege of the human race and creates the seed of possibility and progress. It stirs your imagination and this exhibition was a good chance to find your hidden possibilities.

Interview with two curators, ‘Gu, Seju’, ‘Lee, Boram’

What is the exhibition, ‘The some imagination’?
Gu, Seju: ‘The Some Imagination’ is an exhibition, which gives spectators a chance to use their imagines to the full. On the one hand, you can think of the exhibition subjectively, because it focuses on the individual imagination. However, if you look hard at the artwork, you will find they are include universal themes, which we can imagine easily in our everyday life. Therefore, maybe you will sympathize with the artists, as you understand their works of art.

What is a special feature in this exhibition?
Lee, Boram: This exhibition is placed in a seafood restaurant, ‘Marisco’. We do not only targeted spectators, who visit the exhibition to view pictures, but also included unexpected callers, who visit the restaurant to eat seafood. Therefore, we chose artwork that is funny and can be understood easily by spectators. Selecting the inside of a restaurant for the exhibition was to widen the sphere of spectators. Besides, it created a synergy between restaurant and artists. The restaurant helped artists economically and artists re-created the restaurant into a cultural space.

What possibilities can be presented from this exhibition?
Gu, Seju: Attitudes, that regard imagination as a useless fantasy and do not make an effort to actualize an imagination, are not desirable. Through a process that affirms imagination aggressively and expresses it through drawing, painting, writing, and so on, the imagination is embodied and engraved in our mind deeply. Further, this positive aspect of imagination makes us more confident and creates opportunity for changes and possibilities for a different future.

Lee, Boram: Artists can express their imagination with various kinds of art genres, but university students find it hard to express their imaginations. I think the present university students are pressed with demands of reality. For this reason, I want university students to use their imaginations positively and do what they wish to do.

저작권자 © 중앙헤럴드 무단전재 및 재배포 금지