Jeon, Won-gil Site_Specific International Land Art Biennale 2013 in South Africa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T215BnWU9zM&feature=player_embedded#t=28

 

'The Tails of Waves'

Site Specific International Land Art Biennale 2013 in South Africa

 

Opened Stones and Lines from the Sea

I split 50 rounded stones I found in the seaside in half, then placed the sliced stones on the beach to let 'kiss marks' form between the stones and the waves. After drawing white lines following the mark, I set them all in a circle on the hill nearby. I put the half sliced stones together so that when its opened, one would see a line that came from the waves. By opening them all, it would reveal the lines were linked together as a circle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THREE QUESTIONS interview with Wongil Jeon (South Korea)

 

2013 international invited artist

 

(Note from katty: Sometimes I ask three questions and then edit them into two, but Wongil gave such fascinating answers that I've left them as close as possible in their original form, with a bit of interpretative editing so that we as South Africans can understand his meaning. I hope I didn't lose too much in the translation Wongil – a truly wonderful set of answers, thank you.)

 

Q: You describe what you do as 'Nature Art'. What does this mean to you? 

A: " 'Nature Art' happens when the artist and nature meet in a very direct manner, and 'Nature Art' disappears when the artist leaves from the place of nature in which the art took place. I wait until nature guides me to do something with it, and it then presents itself in what I then do. As an artist, therefore, I am simultaneously interacting and intervening with nature."

 

Q: As an artist you seem particularly focused on the relationship between yourself and nature, between your body and the resonating natural aspects it shares with it's natural environment. In our metropolitan centres people seem to lose touch with this aspect of themselves – what hope do you hold as an artist in bringing about a re-connection with our 'nature selves'?

A: "Nature is not like a repository of confidential documents. It has no wall barring access to it. It's door is wide, and always, open. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that we all see the real features of nature. Particularly to somebody who is easily caught up in the conventional and earthly joy of daily living, the wide open gate that leads us into nature, is barely noticed. Artists often discern some hidden aspect of nature which, in fact, is always there to apprehend by those who are willing to tap into the sensibilities inherent in human nature. And we can see that those art works embodying the great vitality of nature, result from what the artists have done to nature while exploring it in a private manner. My hope is always that the artists' work extends our imagination beyond the frame of our fixed recognition and ideas of nature."

 

Q: As artists we tend to engage with environments that are familiar to us, that offer some kind of control in terms of how we relate and situate our bodies within it. How important is it to travel and engage with environments that are foreign to our own experiences?

A: "I love to work in foreign environments separated from the familiar experience of my life back home. In foreign spaces I can hear something guide me towards a new gate of nature."

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Tessa Kruger

 

 

Won-Gil Jeon shows more dimensions of nature

Plettenberg Bay. – Prominent Korean land artist Won-gil Jeon has produced an artwork from beach stones which carry the “kiss mark of the ocean” at the 2013 Site_Specific Land Art Biennale. The work encourages people to look at nature differently
Describing the creative process he followed before the official unveiling of the work on Friday afternoon, Jeon said he had sourced stones from the rocky part of the beach and broken them in half with a 3kg hammer. He then placed the stones in the water to allow the sea to ‘mark’ them, before he proceeded to paint this ‘kiss mark’ on the stones, using a simple white line.
Jeon said he placed the broken stones in a circle on a slope to connect the lines with each other. To him, the circle symbolises the connection between ‘nature and nature’ and human beings and nature.
The work is a culmination of some of his earlier land art works where he also used a simple line to express his thoughts. “For instance, in the past, I made a work where I put my finger in the water and drew a line onto a rock, which disappeared again in the sunshine. Another example is where I used fallen leaves to make very abstract and unexpected lines on the ground.”
Jeon said he enjoyed land art as it was conceptual and therefore served to expand people’s minds. “A number of people came past the site while I worked this week and asked what I was doing. The thing I enjoyed most was the ‘A-Ha’ moment they experienced once I explained what the work was about.”
“Line is indeed a very useful and basic element to express the relationship between two things. In this work it implies that nature opens your eyes, you learn something more from it. Where you only saw stones or rocks in the past, you now see the marks the water is making on them.”
Interestingly, Jeon said he learnt something while making this work himself: “When I started working, I was only breaking rocks. But as I went along, the ‘opening’ of the rocks came to represent what nature reveals to us,” he added.
Jeon believes the most interesting aspect of land art is that it can be practised by anybody. He feels the public should get involved in this art form to express their feelings toward nature. “This is the wonder of contemporary art – if you have an idea, you can participate,” he said.
Commenting on the temporary nature of land art which is often erased by natural elements such as an incoming tide, he said people frequently ask him how he earns money with land art. “This is the way people think – that everything is about money. But although you can’t escape capitalism, it is important to make one ‘area’ (space) in your life that is free of this notion,” the artist affirmed.
“It is very expensive to keep an artwork in your house  -- but you can take this (land art) work away ‘in your brain’. Our minds need an area which is free from that (capitalism), which helps us to retain our mental and spiritual freedom.”
He concluded that for this reason, he is grateful that art events such as the Site_Specific Land Art Biennale exist. “Discovering things through nature makes me happy,” he smiles.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wongil Jeon (Korea) – Tales of the Waves

 

 Chris Reinders

 Wongil Jeon is one of the foremost land art practitioners on the planet. I saw him arrive at the hotel with his bags and his sledgehammer! Most amusing, but he is an incredible conceptual artist an...d has a gentle and kind nature to go with it… His work for the Land Art Biennale is a circle of rocks, found on the coastline, and smashed in two with his sledgehammer. He then took one half of each rock down to where the waves turn back into the ocean and dipped them into the foam at that suspended point. He traced that wave line with a white paint marker and then arranged the rocks in a circle on the cliff with the lines joining up in a continuous wavy circle. Finally, he covered the rocks with their other halves to conceal the lines.
 When I spoke to him he said that he wanted to expose what was inside the rocks as a metaphor for us to expose what is inside us, to open our eyes and our minds, and look for new and sustainable ways to interact with nature and resolve the environmental problems facing our planet. The circle of rocks represents the earth, Gaia, and her fragility in the face of human technology and psychosis. A big crowd, of around 80 people, pitched up on a cold and windy afternoon to witness the unveiling of the sculpture and lift the top halves of the rocks to complete and reveal the eternal circle of life.