1. Pictures are Always Movin

 I stand in front of pictures in order to see them. That is my job, so I have no idea how many times I have done this. Unlike an artist, I simply stand and look. As a critic, in many cases, I have to put this into words, which is not easy. However, when I look at them, I definitely try to look at them subjectively without thinking about what I will write later. In other words, I try my very best to look with my senses only, without words intervening. Or at least ideally.

 Normally, in a realistic picture (one reproducing reality), something is depicted there, so what first catches my eye is that "something." For an abstract picture (a non-figurative one), my eye first heads towards the colors, lines and composition. In either case, pictures are flat, so I stand in the center of the work. When I stood in front of NAM Chun-Mo's work, I stood in the center as normal, but it felt very uncomfortable. His works have this minute "thickness" to them. While not as thick as a relief or something three dimensional, there is a thickness created from the grooves.

 He impregnates cloth with polyester, and then, when it's dry, he bends the stiff cloth into U-shapes. These U-shapes, these grooves, when lined up, form the "surface" of his works. Thus when I stand directly in front of these grooves of these U-shapes, facing them perpendicularly, I see the ridge lines as lines. And at the same time, towards each edge (left and right, top and bottom), as they are on angles, I see the U-shapes as well. I see it as something that is a plane, but not a plane; as not a plane, but a plane.

 And then there are the colors. The U-shapes themselves have colors. These are not the so-called "earth colors" of whites or browns, but blues and reds and blacks. With whites and browns, lines may be drawn down the middle of the grooves. Sometimes only the flanks of the U-shapes are blue or red, or sometimes only the bottom is black. The changes in how these colors are used make his works extremely varicolored, and offer ever-changing ways to see them. This effect is a bit hard to explain in words without standing in front of one of his actual works. While they are flat, there is an extension of space with a little thickness above that flat surface. But you couldn't say that they aren't flat, as the works are clearly flat plane works. That is, what he is attempting is clearly pictures.

​

2. Actualizing "Colors and Lines"

 I stand in front of NAM Chun-Mo's work. At that moment, what happens to me, a viewer? I experience colors and lines materializing.

 To look at a picture is, normally, to see an illusion, and the colors and lines are merely elements making up that illusion. Even in abstract art, the colors and lines are important elements making up the overall composition, but (while depending on the composition) in the end they converge at the level of illusion. In other words, color and line both start and end with illusion. However, NAM Chun-Mo's work is different. There are no specific shapes, and no abstract art-style compositions. This is because his pictures do not stop moving. I wouldn't think I need to add this, but this is quite different from the old "kinetic art." Kinetic art is designed to move the work itself, or give viewers the impression it is moving, and was art designed, from the first to the last, to be illusionistic.

 You will be able to tell if you stand in front of one of NAM Chun-Mo's works, but his pictures only start moving as works once they hold the viewer's gaze. Without any viewers, these pictures are sleeping. The viewer's experience turns the work into a picture. Moreover, each time the viewer moves his line of sight, each time he moves his body, or in other words, every moment, the picture changes. These are very rare picture that lack a predetermined form. In other words, the "pictures" contain a degree of "ambiguity." This is what the artist is deliberately aiming for. The viewer who stands in front of one, looking at from the front, then the sides, then the front again, is only then able to grasp the entirety. The viewer's body and eyes inevitably pass in front of his work like filming a movie. This object, like a moving image, thus grasped, is his "work," his "picture." Of course, the second time you see it, you will see a different moving image to your first time. Therefore, moving images like these can only be experienced in situ by their nature, and are only created by being in front of the actual works. This "ambiguity" is interesting.

 The shapes of NAM Chun-Mo's works themselves do not change. What changes is, if we leave the lighting out of it, the positions the viewers stand in, and thus the way their eyes receive this. This does not mean we can say that it is the viewer who creates Nam's work. His colors and lines borrow the viewer's vision. Colors and lines borrow the viewer's vision and change into a single tangible entity that is not an illusion. At the same time, while the viewer imagines themselves to be seeing an illusion, in fact it is their own visual experience that is changing. The experience of "seeing" changes into an experience close to touching something solid, tangible. It changes from "seeing" into "seeing as if you are touching." To put it another way, "seeing" goes beyond its normal scope and changes into an experience containing a certain ambiguity.

 NAM Chun-Mo's works continue to move before my eyes, in ever-changing ways. From them, colors and lines come towards me. At that moment, despite the fact that they are always moving, always changing, I can sense that a single unique space has been created, and am able to see it. This does not mean that any picture has a space to it. Those are just spaces limited to the surface, or an illusionistic, psychological space on the viewer's part. However, what NAM Chun-Mo's works generate is an extremely tangible space that is not actually solid. And there is an ambience that appears to have a haze over it, a mist hanging before it. It is not like the sky on a fine day.

​

3. Light and Shade

I forgot about lighting: "light and shade."

 No work can be seen without light, but with NAM Chun-Mo's work, that's not the issue. The surface, with its lines of U-shaped grooves that while not deep, is an extremely complex assembly of areas where the light hits and areas in the shade. Even when displaying it lit normally in the inner areas of galleries, with no sunlight reaching it, the viewers, who as living beings are not of course still, see the light move on the surface. No, not move: change. In other words, the work itself moves relative to the viewers. We the viewers feel as if we are being placed in a "play of light and shade." The star is not NAM Chun-Mo or the viewers, it would not even be a "thing" he has created; it is this "light and shade." I have a kind of feel a bit this way. Both NAM Chun-Mo and we the viewers are held in the arms of this "light and shade," which is the real star. NAM Chun-Mo's experiment here is a work that has thus succeeded in calling forth "light and shade."

 NAM does not create "forms" or abstract compositions by half measures: we could say that his work starts from separating "self" from "expression." After the "self-expression" of modern art ended, what can become the "expression"? NAM has seized on that idea, and, through trial and error, ended up with the work we have today. If his works are seen as a type of "device," then that would be correct in the positive sense. If he were to try and control "light," then if he envisaged a clumsy self-expression, he would only be able to create works that begin and end with being a fool of by "light." In a sense, it is by emphasizing this "device" aspect that he has first been able to call forth "light" in the sense he wishes. It is the "colors and lines" that are actually created by this "light and shade" that catch the viewers' eyes as something tangible. Rather than drawing an illusion of light and shade with color and line, "light and shade" give actual light and shade to "color and line." This allows the "color and form" itself to become tangible.

 And what is born there is this space filled with this rich shadowing!

 I am repeating myself, but this is not a solid expansion, or spreading out. It is only a spreading out within the space of the picture. NAM Chun-Mo himself creates them as "pictures." We the viewers see them as pictures, and there is no other way to see them than as that. If we see his works as "things," then there is a small amount of thickness, but when we actually see the works, within that thickness "light and shade" are wavering, flickering, and this wavering removes that thickness. Or, flattens that thickness. Or rather, makes it a plane with a certain type of swelling to it. It creates a spreading out like a single mist covering it, a single swelling in a flat space.

 There is nothing else like these pictures. NAM Chun-Mo's pictures force a change on the experience of seeing. Most pictures do not move, so seeing is simply something that happens on the viewer's side. However, here the work itself wavers, flickers constantly. Or it trembles comfortably, so the viewers' own act of seeing wavers, and continues to tremble comfortably. If you try and force it to stop somewhere, then an unnaturalness that it has been stopped at some chosen point despise it being a moving image in reality. In other words, it is unnatural no matter where it is stopped. Strictly speaking, it is not possible to photograph NAM Chun-Mo's pictures. If we recall our experiences moving back and forth in front of his works, that should be obvious. There are no other works like this.

 Am I "seeing"? If I am "seeing," then what am I "seeing"? That sort of fundamental question inevitably arises.

 

4. Color / Line / Light

 What I am looking at is a work that is "colors and lines" given solid form, formed from its appearances in the expansion spreading out from the flat space. And this "work" itself is claiming that it is a "picture." The tricky part is that the "colors and lines" are manifesting as something that is not an illusion, but to explain NAM Chun-Mo's methods in a way that is easy to understand, the picture surface is initially materialized and then non-materialized. Cloth is hardened with polyester, and formed into U-shapes, materializing it by giving it the tiniest bit of thickness. We might say that this is the creation of the "support," through NAM Chun-Mo's creativity, that takes the place of the canvas. He might even be able to apply for a patent. However, that is not a simple "support," but even at this stage already has the first colors applied to it.

 Next, colors and lines are applied to this support. They are applied, rather than drawn, as of course nothing is actually being drawn. Therefore, the "illusionism" vanishes at this stage. The painting is formed on a flat ground unconnected with illusionism. This is the end of NAM Chun-Mo's creative work, but the completed work is already made non-material.

 What makes this clear is when it is exhibited. When placed under a light, the "light and shade," and the viewers' eyes, demonstrate this "non-materialization." The viewers experience a spreading out from this picture, with its minute thickness �� a sort of "2.5 dimensions" of spreading out. This attempt at creating a rich and vague spreading, a 2.5-D spreading, by drawing out "colors and lines" and "light and shade" into actual space and having them meet is a complete new picture, and at the same time, a picture in the truest sense of the word. This is because, first of all, it is a new picture that achieves illusionism without relying on the methods of abstract paintings, and secondly, because it is formed from the most basic elements that make a painting a painting: color, line and light.

​

5. Material and Spirit

 Writing this far, something that has floated naturally to the back of my mind is the idea of painting, the format of painting, that has been called Korea's "Monochrome School" or "modernism school" and could already be in the history. I sense both similarities (continuance) and differences (newness) between NAM Chun-Mo's paintings and the Monochrome School paintings.

 The similarities are not due to the fact that the surfaces are monochromatic. That sort of superficial way of looking is mistaken. My own opinion is that the most important feature of the Monochrome School paintings is, put simply, the creation of a new painting without departing from the surface, regardless of the release to normal materials of "ones where the painting is drawn on top (normally canvas, paper, or board)" and "something (normally paints) that is painted onto a support", and that painting is therefore, despite being formed from the very materials of supports and pigments, extremely spiritual, or in other words, they express the "spirit" or the "heart" directly. (Incidentally, in many of my critical essays on Korean artists, I have been writing about this for a long time.)

 Then the most important part is the achievement of using "senses" to link material and spirit (heart), or in other words, the transformation of the "picture" to art for that purpose. This is achieved by the Korean Monochrome School pictures, and is a unique achievement without peer in the world.

 When they reconsidered the support composing the picture (the canvas, paper, etc.) and the paints (oils, acrylics, watercolors, etc.) and freed themselves from those Western viewpoints, the Monochrome School artists understood that a painting was not what you drew on the surface of the material, but what you expressed. What you use for the support or the pigments is not what really matters. The Monochrome School artists figured out, even though intuitively, that whatever you use, if you do not "bring about" your own "spirit" itself, your "heart" itself at all, then the artistic expression will not come about. It's okay to use the method of drawing something with a "form," but viewers will not infrequently just see this "form," and not see the "heart" that the artist has incorporated in there, so the surface should be something that is "non-reproducible." Of course, the "contents" of the "spirit" and "heart" are different with each artist. However, as long as no specific forms are borrowed and it does not follow anything specifically, the direct expressions of "spirit" and "heart" are, inevitably, similar in terms of external appearances. However, this is not a "style." This is how the Monochrome School painting group was formed.

 Entrust spirit and heart to materials. For example, almost all the minimalist paintings in the West ended up centralizing on materials alone. Now, half a century later, there is almost nothing to see in them. On the other hand, the reason why the paintings of the Korean Monochrome School have still not faded at all is because the materials are spiritualized. To be accurate, it is because while they are materials and the materials do not lose their materiality, there is a "spirit" or "heart" residing in there. Or, rather than "residing," a "work" is created where the material is at the same time the spirit (heart). The material can be the spirit (heart) itself. In other words, the spirit (heart) can entrust itself to the material as well.

 The decisive role here is played by "senses." The achievements of Monochrome School paintings have been brought about solely by the "senses" alone. Conversely, the "senses" are thoroughly imbued only to realize the "painting." The scattered "senses" are converged towards that alone. The paintings in the Monochrome School are the condensate of the "senses." The "senses" are condensed towards one target. In that sense, we must review the paintings of the Monochrome School once more.

​

6. The Spreading of the Senses

 NAM Chun-Mo's paintings inherit this achievement, regardless of whether he was aware of it. Viewers, go and stand in front of his works again. Before you know it, you will find yourself facing your own spirit (heart) through your "senses." The difference in viewing Eastern modern art and Western modern art could be said to be that if you stand in front of a painting from the former, if you don't see it "without preconceived notions" then the essence will not be seen. In other words, the former brings viewers to the plane of a new painting by making them "without preconceived notions." Here, "without preconceived notions" means "expand and calm your heart, and make it empty." However, here that is simply letting your "senses" work freely. There may be some Western-school viewers who do not wish to be taken along that way, but too bad.

 In NAM Chun-Mo's paintings, if we only look at the rows of these U-shapes then they are certainly material, but the reason that, unlike the Monochrome School, they do not feel all that material is because they borrow "light and shade" and call forth "space" there. That is the difference. Expressing "spirit (heart)" in the "material" is the same, but his work has a "planar" spread, and "light and shade." Without closing everything up into a two-dimensional surface, the "0.5-D" part is created with "light and shade." This "light and shade" changes the way the viewer's "senses" are. The "senses" are both free, and at the same time, concentrated towards that "0.5-D" spread.

 This is where NAM Chun-Mo's newness lies. If the "senses" in the old Monochrome School paintings were focused on a single point, then for NAM Chun-Mo, the "senses" are focused on a single "spreading." With the former, "senses" are concentrated only towards the target of "material = spirit." In contrast, with the latter, the breadth of the "senses" is spreading out. Their facing the "picture" is the same, and the target remains the same, "the spiritualization (heart-ification) of the material = the materialization of the spirit (heart)." However, the creation of the "2.5-D" changed the "action" of the "senses." Thanks to this, what we call the "swelling" is created on the picture itself.

​

7. Aroma

 To the Monochrome School in the 1970s and 1980s, "on the plane" was an almost absolute condition, while for NAM Chun-Mo, born in 1961, the "picture" itself, including the "form" itself, had to be fundamentally made new. In other words, from the removal from the basic condition of the "plane," the "picture" had to be started. He started from taking apart pictures down to "colors" and "lines." However, if all he did was take them apart, it would have been easy because minimalism or conceptual art methods were already known. However it is clear that he did not use that method, and that was the right choice. In the minimalism and conceptual art of the West during the 1960s and 1970s, the fact that there was nothing lying ahead became clear by its end, in the 1990s at the latest, or in other words during the 20th century.

 From a global point of view, NAM Chun-Mo was able to aim for a different direction to all the "extremism," "vanishing," "throwbacks," and "repetitions" of art at the end of the 20th century. What is "art"? What can be "art"? He returned to the "senses" again. Starting again from the fact that art is originally a matter of "senses." The issue is, how to express the "spirit (heart)" through the "senses." We may say that he started by going back to this starting point.

 NAM Chun-Mo once wrote that "I always want to portray a subtle aroma that I can smell inside my mind." This is a beautiful way to put it. When he returned to the starting point of the "senses," what he felt he wanted to express again was the "subtle aroma, the delicate perfume that I can smell inside my mind." He wanted to express that in unique "pictures." I have not used the "sense of smell" here as a metaphor. If that's how you understand it, then his beautiful words are meaningless. If we trace it back, perhaps he thought that he really smells something, and the aroma of that smell is what he wants to express in his pictures. At any rate, it is that intent that has given birth to his new "pictures." The "pictures' senses" incorporate even "smell."

 "Smell" can be sensed even when your eyes are shut, but there could be "smells" you cannot detect unless your eyes are open. As people with their eyes shut cannot tell where the smell is coming from, those people are only able to sense the most simple, pure smells. NAM Chun-Mo does not believe that this is the real experience of smell. Smells are also first created once there is a "world." Once we have the prerequisite of accepting the entirety of the "world," then we can sense the smells. "Sound" and "touch" are the same. The "world" is seen in peoples' eyes. And if a smell is wafting around there, if a sound is heard, then people will naturally try and see where that smell is coming from, where that sound is coming from. We try to specify and confirm smells and sounds with our eyes. In this way, the acceptance of the overall "world" is confirmation through our "vision," and "seeing" specifies smells and sounds.

 In addition, the action of "vision" is not just about specifying and confirming. We also remember smells, sounds, and touches within the "vision" itself. "Vision" expands.

 If we trace it back, NAM Chun-Mo may not perhaps have sensed a real smell. However, that's beside the point. If he is only able to express what he is trying to say through the allegory of aroma, that is because inside him the smells have already been remembered as vision. They have been "visualized." This means nothing less than that smells and sounds and touches can be visualized. You cannot smell a scent, hear a sound, or feel the touch of a surface with your eyes. However, by calling the total of our five senses, "senses," we can imagine a relationship like "vision > smell," "vision > hearing," and "vision > touch." This is what allows us to remember the "vision" of smell, sounds, and the touch of objects.

 Naturally, we become comprehensively "aware" of the information brought to us by our five senses through our brains. In the end, the brain makes the judgment. However, when the artist NAM Chun-Mo says what he wants to depict is the "subtle aroma that I can smell inside my mind," his brain, which is living off "vision," gives the top priority to "visual" judgments. And anyone, whether an artist or not, lives by prioritizing something. That is one of the proofs that humans are human. For an artist, all that happens is that that aspect comes out to the surface clearly.