Artist’s Statement

Young Jin Park

Death Of An Art student,2017

 

 

     The mediums of this artwork are photography, sculpture and performance. The purpose of this artwork is to combine life and art. This artwork shows my personal background. At the same time, it is a representation of lives of individuals. This art could be meaningless, meaningful, artistic, mathematical, philosophical, and humorous just like life.

 

     I was born in Korea. To represent my identity I used the Korean funeral culture in the artwork. Also, modern Korea is a combination of western culture and the eastern culture that has changed over time. Koreans has given up the complicated process of funeral and made everything less complicated by combining the simplicity of funeral culture from the East and the West. For example,Sam-il-jang is a tradition where a dead is buried after three days of funeral. This tradition has been trending down and a lot of people choose to be cremated right away. However, one of the traditions that is still left is sharing food with visitors of the funeral. Today, funeral style depends on the financial status.

 

     Is art for self- satisfaction? Is the art for others visual satisfaction? The work that had required a lot of time and effort might just be garbage to someone. If a person who knows the value of Picasso is seeing Picasso’s work, it’s worth seeing. However, if he does not know Picasso, his work will be a picture without value. Everyone is an artist, but not all artworks get to be exhibited. Art is created and continued as long as someone likes it. Where does the value of art come from? I saw something in common between art and life. How valuable is an individual’s life? Are the salaries and degrees the measurement of the value of a person? Many of people exist and they have nothing to do with us. They are far away and we cannot even know the person's name. What is the value of the person? Can we measure it? The value of one's life and the value of one's artwork are clearly different. However, we can see the common things. I have expressed my answer in my artwork.

 

     This work contains many meanings even though it may seem chaotic. However, every detail has its own meaning. This artwork is a rebellion against the poor and meaningless values. This work is a farewell ceremony for the forgotten artworks and the artists, a personal farewell ceremony for leaving the school, a farewell of my past, and a ceremony to commemorate my new start.