Page 29 - PHOTODOT 2017년 6월호 VOL.43 Jun

Anti-landscape.

Who am I?
The painful days.
Is it in a dream?
Within the dark head.
The grazed division.
When opening my eyes, the divided
South-South North-North.
Fastened immovably.
This sky, this ground.
Drawing the lines and building the walls. Beautiful Anti-landscape
The acts done there. Chung asserts that we have to see an object as it is. And yet, the dif-
ference from what other artists see is the fact that he sees an ob-
Everything is an act
ject through what he sees, feels, and meets. He also considers that
Done to oneself.
one’s viewpoint is obviously associated with his or her experience.
Inside the Demilitarized Zone,
He meditates and captures the world with his own eyes while see-
There is one thatched cottage. ing the world as it is. His eyes head to the external world in works
Wish to live before <Dreamscape> that highlights the internal world. His early
Ehera! series <Anti-landscape>, done in the 1980s, features static scenes
There is something to be reaped of division in black-and-white photographs. Triggered by his earnest
wish for unification and pain from the division, he demonstrates
Gain strength
scenes symbolic of the division such as cease-fire lines, protective
Gain strength
walls, and sentry posts in serenity. After observing the sites of the
Anti-landscape 839-46 division for years, he realizes our current situation in which we are
trapped in a completely closed country. Paradoxically however, he
denotes that such scenes are “desperately beautiful.”
As the title Anti-landscape implies, Chung overturns our common
notion of landscape. He brings visually bleak, dreary landscapes to
us who have the ideated aesthetic perspective that “landscapes are
only beautiful." Taking note of this, the art critic Kim Chan-kyong
clarifies that “Chung Dong Suk take photographs of dead land-
scapes that look like paintings.” And yet, Chung’s landscapes arouse
the sympathy of many and touch the heart since they are laden
with his wish for changes in the world. He seems to discover a new
beauty in these landscapes. He keeps observing his subject matter
while directly feeling the reality of our nation as it is. Isn’t this prac-
tice really beautiful?

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