مين جيونغ سيو

Summe im Augenblick

source: seo-minjeongde

biography

born in Busan, Korea

2003~2008: Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design, Stuttgart, Germany

Department of Gaphic Art, Prof.Marianne Eigenheer

Department of Ceramics, Prof.Mariella Mosler

1998: MFA Department of Printmaking, Graduate School of Tama Art University, Tokyo, Japan

1995: BFA Department of Printmaking, College of Fine Arts of Hong-ik University, Seoul, Korea
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source: seo-minjeongde

Summe im Augenblick

installation, expanded polystyrene, steel cable, nylon cord, ca. 15x4x5m, 2010

Ruin as Metaphor
About Min Jeong Seo’s Installation SUMME IM AUGENBLICK at Bellevue-Saal
From the very start there was a clear goal. Min Jeong Seo wanted to blow up Bellevue Hall. Well, not Bellevue Hall itself, it is of coures part of a designated historical monument, but a reduced replica anyway. To reach that goal the whole of Bellevue Hall first had to be measured precisely and a styrofoam model had to be built thoroughly, scaled down to 62% of its actual size.
It was all made to later break the finished model apart, in such a way that the pieces and cracks suggest an explosion had happened. The result presents itself as an artificial ruin of Bellevue Hall. Long cracks and jagged gaps show the force of the assumed explosion. The cracked ceiling gives way for a look up to the actual ceiling of Bellevue Hall.
Her [Min Jeong Seo’s] works distinctly create references to time, process, fragility and border zones. It’s quite conspicuous how opposites connect in her work. Elaborately made things and the following act of destruction, being and non-being, duration and transition, life and death. In those works the process plays an essential part and represents once again a reference to time.
There are different ways for the perception and understanding of time. Time is a construct but also a factor governing our social life. In physics time can only be now-time, it simply is present. In contrast subjective experience of time may be very different. For example the sense of time while waiting for something or how time perception differs for younger or older people. As we speak of the past, the present, the future the meaning of life becomes part of the question. Where do we come from? Where are we headed to? In that context Min Jeong Seo points out the buddhist notion to understand time as a sequence of moments. Each point in time holds a certain meaning and represents a fraction of the whole. According to this conception the explosion tears a hole in time. It is not the form that got lost but time itself.
The explosion itself cannot be seen but only its effects. The instant of the explosion constitutes an annihilated fraction of time as well as the disintegration of that space in its previous form. The frozen mass of ruins represents an image of the incident, it reflects the energy of the explosion. In that sense the ruin of the hall conveys the idea.

Ulrich Meyer-Husmann
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source: naimoka

Née à Busan en Corée, l’artiste Min Jeong Seo a fait ses études à Seoul, Tokyo, puis Stuttgart, et vit aujourd’hui à Berlin.

Malgré sa finesse et sa beauté, son oeuvre évoque des thèmes assez sombres. Fenêtres murées, roses maintenues artificiellement en vie dans des sachets de perfusion remplis d’eau, architectures éclatées, ou encore oiseaux changés en sculpture. Toujours, une certaine fragilité se dégage de ces frêles sculptures suspendues dans l’espace, et une grande grâce, comme ces bras sans corps de danseurs de ballets, recouverts de tatouages de yakuza et moulés en porcelaine en position de danse.
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source: kunstverein-bellevue-saalde

Eine Rauminstallation aus unzähligen größeren und kleineren Bruchstücken von Styropor, wie eine Explosion der Momente. Die Installation zeigt die vergängliche Form eines Objekts am Wendepunkt zwischen Sein und Nicht-Sein – etwas, das man normalerweise nicht erleben kann. Ich habe einen Moment in der Zeit festgehalten. Dieser Moment, der Übergang zwischen Existenz und Nicht- Existenz, hat für mich einen buddhistischen Hintergrund.

Die Wahrnehmung der Zeit ist veränderlich. Die Explosion stoppt den normalen Ablauf, reißt ein Loch in die Zeit. In der Explosion ist nicht die Form verloren gegangen, sondern die Zeit ist verloren gegangen.

Am Ende eines Lebens bestimmt vielleicht der Gedanke der Vergänglichkeit die Wahrnehmung und das Leben erscheint kurz und vergeblich, nur wie ein Moment. Dies ist ein Kerngedanke der buddhistischen Philosophie, auf den die Installation in ironischer Weise Bezug nimmt.