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Installation view of MICHAEL JOO’s “Single Breath Transfer,” Kukje Gallery, Seoul, 2017. Photo by Keith Park. Courtesy Kukje Gallery.
Michael Joo proudly points to his distinctly phallic glass sculptures at Kukje Gallery in Seoul to explain how he gives shape to his breath. Through a series of works referred to as “Single Breath Transfer” (2017), which was also the title of his first solo exhibition at Kukje, Joo concretizes the ephemeral function of breathing. This notion of giving form to intangible and unquantifiable processes related to the body and the shifting identity of places runs deep in the artist’s work shown in the exhibition.
The transfer of energy consumes Joo. His labor-intensive glass sculptures are formed as he exhales into basic paper and plastic bags found in grocery stores and on the street. Joo’s assistants then quickly cast each inflated bag into molds by using wax or liquid nitrogen. Subsequent ceramic molds of those casts enable a glassmaker to blow into each shape, thereby giving solid shape to exhaled breath. Displayed on wooden pedestals in the first of two exhibition spaces, these sculptures convey the fragility of breath and the presence of the human body within delicate folds and creases of the bags that form the outer skin on their surfaces.
Embodied in the gesture of converting energy from gaseous to solid state is also Joo’s concern with time, which is not only abstracted through the transformation of matter, but is also apparent from Joo’s engagement with places. Much like his previous work on the Sapelo Island off the coast of Georgia state, Joo’s recent project on the Dokdo Islands, located in the East China Sea, 215 kilometers from the Korean Peninsula, investigates issues of identity by referencing the territory dispute between Japan and Korea, as both nations claim the islands as their own.
Installation view of MICHAEL JOO’s “Single Breath Transfer,” Kukje Gallery, Seoul, 2017. Photo by Keith Park. Courtesy Kukje Gallery.
In a series of works titled “Liminus,” which was partially made in 2017 on Dokdo, Joo captures numerous impressions of the islands’ rocky surfaces by rubbing canvases coated with epoxy ink on the ground, and leaving them exposed to the elements overnight. After being treated with silver nitrate in his studio, these markings reveal what appear to be magnificent outlines of ancient, untouched landscapes before the onset of human encroachment. Embedded in the silvery gold surfaces, one discerns waterfalls and mountains, and the evocation of sunsets and dawns that shimmer like ornate daguerreotypes. Yet concealed in these rubbings are what Joo refers to as “calcified identities,” imposed by the geopolitical polarization between the two feuding countries. The poignancy of these works is not just how they inhabit a liminal space where identity is hard to pinpoint or quantify, but also in the way they conjure untouched nature on the one hand, and the burden of history on the other.
The encumbrance of history is further abstracted in Migrated 1 and 2 (both 2017), which are brass mobiles that recall the wings of airborne birds, representing the trajectory of migratory cranes that fly through the demilitarized zone that divides Korea. Suspended in the second gallery space, with volcanic rocks taken from South Korea’s Civilian Control Zones near the DMZ hanging from them like curios, these works relay how Joo conceptualizes the difficulty in defining identity in the tussle for land, in this case for decades after the Korean War.
While Joo is often successful in his non-canonical approach to creating what critic Paul Black calls “signifiers of a concept,” his “caloric paintings”—comprised of photography and prints and referred to as self-portraits, in which the artist uses his own biometrics to calculate the energy required to commit the seven deadly sins—are an instance when his brand of abstracted scientific speculation is the least engaging. Even so, Joo’s work is at its best when he compels us to reconsider how one assigns identity. Through his innovative use of materials and painstaking processes that constantly reflect his exploration of energy transfer involving the body, one appreciates more than ever the value and meaning of one’s physical presence.
Installation view of MICHAEL JOO’s “Single Breath Transfer,” Kukje Gallery, Seoul, 2017. Photo by Keith Park. Courtesy Kukje Gallery.
Michael Joo’s “Single Breath Transfer” is on view at Kukje Gallery, Seoul, until December 31, 2017.
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