Choi Xooang’s Sculptures Is A Profound Examination Of Human Pathology
Choi Xooang makes disturbing concrete sculptures. Well that’s the first thing that strikes you when you see his figures. Revulsion. The ugliness of the human body and the artists mastery of technique. However, beyond that Xooang has much to say.
His work is not realistic in the sense that you are looking at a representation of human beings caught in a moment of time. Nor are they studies, specimens, ornaments. No. This work is about pathology. About Will. About the individual in society. About universal pain and struggle.
Over the last number of years the South Korean artist has been investigating the human condition. His first figures were small but suffered from delusion, believing themselves to be big, able to make a difference in the world, a state of mind that was ultimately useless as their diminuitive stature prevented them from making an impression on an indifferent society.
From there Xooang began sculpting figures in a vegetative state; able to display human emotions yet unable to perceive the world about them, utterly powerless, as the individual is against the state, where free will is redundant in the face of a highly standardized, controlled society.
In recent years Xooang has begun looking at the individual itself and examining the dual meaning of a persons activities – which are based on their own free will – and the accomplishments of a society’s ideals through their sacrifice. In his series ‘Asberger’s Island’ his sculptures become representations of social characters, their impairments a reflection of our social relations, our roles within society. His figures come to reflect the universal attributes we all share and are disabled by; one figure has a huge head too heavy to stand up, another begs for money with huge hands, and so on.
The combination of a masterful technique which we can all readily appreciate and marvel at, along with an interior language we can all understand, provided we care to listen, is what makes Xooang a remarkable artist and someone worth paying attention too.
To actually find out anything about the artist has been rather difficult but what I’ve posted above is a selection of work that covers much of what I’ve written. Hope you enjoy it. There are loads of other images of his work out there in cyber universe.
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