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Memories of the Gaze – Rhee Jae Yong at Gallery EM at Art 13

Details of Gallery EM’s artist at Art 13:

Rhee Jae-yong: Memories of the Gaze

Rhee Jae-yong: Memories of the Gaze: Samil Rice Mill (2012)
Rhee Jae-yong: Memories of the Gaze: Samil Rice Mill (2012). Archival pigment print 24.60 x 36.86 cm, Edition of 5

Rhee’s series Memories of the Gaze reflects the artist’s long-term interest in capturing a medium or a moment capable of triggering once-lost memories. The idea of involuntary memory – of reminiscence triggered by a certain catalyst – comes from Marcel Proust’s novel In Search of Lost Time, whose narrator uses the ‘madeleine cake’ as a conduit for the past, to bring back memories formerly believed to be lost. With this in mind Rhee utilizes particular (construction) sites in the city of Seoul and throughout the country as catalysts for reminiscence. In taking photographs of the same site, for example, over a certain period of time (sometimes up to ten years), Rhee makes the past and the present, extinction and creation, simultaneously. The resulting photographs are then layered together to create a landscape of the same spot in different time zones existing as one. The final outcome represents the absolute time zone created by the accumulation of the artist’s gazing on the subject over a period of time. Here, ‘absolute time’ refers to the return of past memories, and the restoration to reality of the time and space in which those dormant memories once existed.

Born in Yeosu, Korea, in 1969, Jae Yong Rhee majored in Visual Communication Design at Hongik University, where he also completed his MA in Product Design. After working in the field of commercial photography, he returned to the fine art scene in 2010. His first solo show was held at Olive Gallery (Seoul) in 1998, followed by a second at De Chocolate Gallery (Seoul) in 2010, and most recently at Gallery EM (Seoul) in 2012. He has been included in group shows at a variety of museums and galleries including Seoul’s Hongik University Museum and Sai Gallery in 1997 and 1999 respectively; Hallim Museum (Daejeon) in 2000; Gallery EM (Seoul) in 2010; Insa Art Center (Seoul) in 2011; and Culture Station Seoul 284 in 2012. Rhee has also taken part in art festivals, such as the Arles Photo Festival in France in 1999. His work is in the collection of SK Networks (Seoul) and the National Museum of Contemporary Art (Gyeonggi-do)

Gallery EM is at stand LF17 at Art 13, 1-3 march 2013, Olympia Grand Hall. www.galleryem.co.kr

(automatically generated) Read LKL’s review of this event here.

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