The white shaded backyard_part 1, 2008-2013

The space seen in ‘The white shaded backyard’ is a deserted area where people were using it for the reasons. This originally natural space becomes a discarded and useless area. Like this, this space is entangled with the present and the past time. Even though discarded, now it contacts and creates for becoming a new place.
I would like toexplain myphoto being full of implications to show the poetic impression‘white shaded’.
First, adding the term ‘white’ to the bright shadow not to the dark shadow, Iintendto recognize the deserted, discarded, and chaotic space where something can be created or reproduced by viewers.
Second, the meaning of ‘yard’ is a space which is close and empty. At the same time, it has the multiple meanings of shattered time and space which has been used in the traditional Korean masked dance in order to express Madang 1, Madang 2.
Showing the wounded natural features by facing each other and metaphorical space where the nature is recovered from the ruin, Iwould like toshow the never ending features of nature and generative space showing self-circulative vital energy of nature.

GunYoungLee

Deserted Spaces or Spaces of the Heart

The photographs of Gun Young Lee show spaces. These spaces are nameless. It’s not that they did not have a name to start with, but that somewhere along the line, they lost the name that they once had. But upon a closer look, we find that the reason for their namelessness is not just that they lost the name that they had. Rather, they are turning into something that cannot yet be called any definite name. In other words, the various spaces within Lee’s frames are all spaces in process-spaces of boundaries, which are neither this nor that, or both this and that. What, then are the names of these spaces in process, spaces of boundaries? And what message can be derived from seeking a name for these spaces in these photos? All of Lee’s photos show spaces that have been deserted. They were once used for a certain purpose, but having lost their use and been cast away, no one is there anymore. An abandoned salt field now occupied by tall weeds swaying in the wind, the playing field of a closed school once filled with children running around freely, the site of an old lake where fish used to abound now a parched up piece of land under the bright sun after a dam was built and all the water was discharged… Looking at the images of these deserted spaces, what we receive before anything else, as happens with photos of New Topographics, are the ruins of nature, developed and used to human purpose and abandoned once the purpose has been served, that is, the destruction of nature by civilization’s selfishness. In this aspect, the deserted spaces of Lee are the wounded faces of nature. Nevertheless, the message being conveyed through the spaces of ruins in Lee’s photos goes beyond a criticism of civilization’s violence against nature. Looking in carefully, we see that while the deserted spaces captured in his photos are barren and in ruins, they are also each a scene where a certain event is taking place. Be it an abandoned parking lot with tall lights standing lonesomely, a mountain valley turned into an illegal junkyard, or a barren ground scattered with golf balls, the dark ruins of Lee contain not only the wounded faces of nature, but also faces of a different kind that are growing out of those wounds. They can be the tall weeds in the abandoned salt field, grass coming out of the dried up land once a lake, or the trees that have grown thickly around a telegraph pole. In short, the photographic spaces of Lee are twofold, where on the one hand, there is the ravaged nature, and on the other hand, there is the return of nature to the ravages. This twofold image brings to light the self-circulating vitality of nature, which no matter how badly it may have been wounded by civilization, will work its way through those wounds and reawaken life. In this sense, the deserted spaces of Lee are not spaces of ruins but rather spaces of creation. But there are spaces of yet another kind. Perhaps the actual reason behind Lee’s search through the outskirts of cities and local areas for deserted scenes, these are spaces that are not apparent within the photographic image, but rather aesthetic. The viewer makes associations based on the intersecting points of the spaces of ruins and the spaces of creation, or the overlapping of these spaces, which generates an aesthetic place of a third kind. This special place cannot be called by the name of civilization or that of nature. Spaces of this kind are nameless, atopian. If these spaces of a third kind which Lee tries to capture with his camera and present to the viewers through a twofold image are atopian and cannot be named in any way, where could these spaces be? Could they be spaces of the heart that he is searching for and hopes to reach? If spaces of our hearts in these times are those of chaos, disintegrated by countless information and occupied by overflowing desires, the same must be true with Lee. One day, quite by accident, he would have remembered a space of the heart now deprived, wanted to find it again, and hence captured in a frame a nameless space where ruins and creation coexisted. In this sense, the deserted spaces of Lee may be secret spaces of the heart that only he knows of. But then again, who does not have a special space of the heart of their own? If we are brought to stop and look the deserted spaces of Gun Young Lee, it
may be that the spaces of creation within the ruins are transporting us to our very own spaces of the heart.

김진영 (Art Critic, Academy of Philosophy)

lee gunyoung

2010 MFA in photography, Hongik University of Korea, Seoul, Korea
2007 BFA in photography, Kyungil University of Korea, Gyeongsan, Korea

[SOLO EXHIBITION]
2016 S’scape, creative support project, BMW Photo Space, Busan, Korea
2015 PL.A.NET, creative support exhibition, SPACE 22, Seoul, Korea
2014 The white shaded backyard, BAEDARI Photo Gallery, Incheon, Korea
2014 The white shaded backyard, SongEun ArtCube, Seoul, Korea
2011 Gun Young Lee, PHOTO BELT Exhibition, Gallerie PICI, Seoul, Korea
2009 The white shaded backyard, Gallery IS, Seoul, Korea

[GROUP EXHIBITION]
2016 PHOTOVILLE Exhibition, SensationPhotography, Newyork, United States
2015 Summer Love Exhibition, SongEun Artspace, Seoul, Korea
2015 Visual point Exhibition, modernplus gallery, Ilsan, Korea
2015 Other observations Exhibition, modern plus gallery, Ilsan, Korea
2014 Definition of photograph Exhibition, 1839 gallery, Sooncheon, Korea
2013 the outside / landscape, SPACE22, Seoul, Korea
2013 Successive generations SAJIN BIPYONG Award Artist Exhibition ‘succeeding’, Topohaus , Seoul, Korea
2012 DAEGU PHOTO BIENNALE, How a City Works Exhibition, Daegu Art Factory, Daegu, Korea
2012 Dong Gang International Photo Festival, Street Installation Exhibition, The 6th Exhibition ; Rediscovery of Yeongwol, Yeongwol, Korea
2012 SAJIN BIPYONG Award Artist Exhibition, Gallery Arto, Daegu, Korea
2012 SAJIN BIPYONG Award Artist Exhibition, Gallery IANG, Seoul, Korea
2010 Endless Challenge young Artist Exhibition, GaGa Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2010 Zam, Jang Heoung ArtPark, Gyeonggi-do, Korea
2008 Post & Photo The 6th, Topohaus, Seoul, Korea
2007 Post & Photo The 5th, Topohaus, Seoul, Korea

[AWARDS]
2016 Creative support project, BMW Photo Space, Busan, Korea
2014 The 1 th The Society of Korea Photography Excellence portfolio award, Korea
2014 Creative Arts Support Program, Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture, Seoul, korea
2013 SongEun Art Cube exhibition support, SongEun Art Foundation, Seoul, Korea
2012 THE 13th SAJIN BIPYONG Award , PHOTOSPACE, Seoul, Korea
2011 PHOTO BELT, The Korea Print and Photo Association, Seoul, Korea