People as Objects - People as Objects
Hwaran-Moonassi Duo exhibition
<Personality - a person as an object>
Gyeonwolmangji (見月忘指); a proverbial phrase that means, “Once you've seen the moon, forget your finger. It means that once you have grasped the reality, you don't need to be bothered by anything else, but the artists Hua Lan and Muna seem to be saying that before you forget your finger, you should take a second look at where it was pointing. When we read a portrait, we first try to figure out who the person is. We try to identify the person's race from their skin color, and their gender from their facial features. Furthermore, we try to read the person's age and current state of mind by observing their facial features. However, Hwalan and Muna want us to take a fresh look at the people on the screen by calling attention to these unconscious perceptions. They want us to look at the people on the screen as if we were looking at the objects around us, as if we were looking at a vase, or as if we were looking at the trees lining the roadside.
When you come face to face with Hwaran's works, teeth, neck, mouth, and rain, you will find yourself looking at the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears that you have always seen and thought you knew so well. “Look at this person,” he says, but it's hard to tell what kind of person he is. The portrait is deconstructed and presented in a way that allows the viewer to look at it from multiple perspectives, like an oriental painting, where when looking at a mountain from a distance, one sees the beauty of the ridge, notices the beauty of the rocks, and then looks at the different shapes of the trees and the people passing beneath them.
Moonassi's portraits are no different. The figures, in poses you might encounter on the street at any time, look as if they have been standing there for tens of minutes. The typical background that we would normally pass by unnoticed is highlighted and illuminated as the main character. The artist seems to want the viewer to look at the 'people' as 'objects', just as we look at the objects in a still life painting.