Lee Hyunsoo

Euthanasia of Rentiers

_Lee Hyunsoo:  EVERGREEN

/ Cho Jaeyeon

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

Mike Tyson, from an interview in August, 1987

1

I’ve gained all the knowledge about you, and because of this accumulation of knowledge, I’m finally bidding farewell. Having shared simultaneously the most beautiful and the most embarrassing, we now know what we’ll leave behind, now after having exchanged what we’re most devoted to and what’s most ugly in each other. Now, after I’ve made sufficient efforts to become a person just right enough for you, and you, right enough for me. The foam will erase all words carved on the sand, as anticipated by reason. They say it takes more heart and wisdom to let go than to hold on. Has the wisdom, not born at the starting point, been loaded to this extent, from experiment, experience, proof, and review, for this day to be mistaken? But what I’m thinking of here, is the moment before we matured, the moment we promised eternity at the beginning of love, and when we were immersed in the dream of a revolution at the start of a new life. I’m slowly realizing that grand and radical reason ends up existing only in the absence of maturity. They say love that will come to fruition and revolution to come rest in the future, but why is it that accomplishment and prosperity makes us distant from it? Or perhaps arrive at a nother destination without having departed? If the wisdom that comes from repetition of time makes you put something down, perhaps it’s better to turn your steps toward stupidity. I’m going to return to the rough, immature, irrational and undeveloped “start” and “confess” something to you again.

It’s an era where the most art since human history is being distributed. More exhibitions, music, performances, and books fill the world today than ever before. And it's not just in terms of quantity. Every time a new work is given birth to this world, it becomes disclosed in the world through the mouths of the artist and critics, as to how it transcends the previous discourses and how it’s different. In other words, the art that resurrects in a new body every time in the face of death sentenced inside and out, is basically indicating that right now and right here is the best. But is the present day, brimming with the most mature art forms, really the most beautiful world? Becoming modest in the face of truth rather than believing that the truth can be clearly and transparently revealed. Exploring differences and parts rather than keeping silent about the world in entirety. Waving one’s hand and being fearful of denial and criticism and consoling with happiness and love. We face such affectionate art with the compassionate face of humanity. In the meantime, we lost a friend who left forever. Meanwhile, I ceaselessly strove to become wise. But why can't I feel proud whenever I reflect my wisdom now on the long text and life? I recall the first promise when I tore out my heart, roaming lost in the torn ruins of a castle, on a night when moonlight poured as if it were rain. I inevitably know that I can't confront all of today's art with petty writing, or the remaining words, in obvious or naïve complaining. So instead of criticism, I will just try to scream like a lover asking what had happened to the promise made in the past. Hear my scream.

2

Whether in a word or a picture, the one preceding word or color preestablishes the multiple words and colors that will follow. In the same way, what comes after the literature and art of an age follows an order, because “art” exists within a normative trajectory from where it can be read as art. As if it were a matter of fact, progress executes one scene whether it’s through the means of parody and criticism, or of homage and succession. The acting substitute completes (what is) the original although it erodes the original. However, no one asks what has been implemented in this “history” that is said to be in the progress of completion, or how close it is to achieving the promise, just as no one asks questions like “how can love change?” or “why isn’t the revolution here yet?” anymore. This is probably where Lee Hyunsoo’s “starting” point lies. EVERGREEN directs opposite the future, towards the last station passed by. They say everyone is full of boldness at start. He appropriates the original like the works by Agnes Martin, Edmund de Waal, Giorgio Morandi, Cy Twombly and Roni Horn, but this is not for his “next” step of reinvention. The exhibition actually turns the original back to its form of rough draft or sketch. In other words, the work runs in counter direction, to the “starting” point where the accomplishment of the original would not have existed in any words, colors, forms or sounds. Disheveling neatly parted hair before it was neat, and crying out rather than clearly articulating as taught, his works remind us of what they promised in the beginning.

The time in Agnes’ Sculpture goes back 100 years even before Agnes Martin finished conceptualizing her work, to a moment when it was critical or insignificant. Joy, purity, love, freedom, friendship: These naïve words are titles that Martin affixed to her works. But these words don’t seem to hold any capacity now, unless they were words like difference, other, or existence. That’s how common and cliché they have become. Were they in fact boring at the beginning point of time? Or were they actually free when they were about to start? There’s never been the fear that their value would become too common when they haven’t even begun yet. Rather, I trembled in the fear that I would become stingy in confessing their value because of such commonness. Martin's minimalism eliminates the artist by omitting tags, the status of the work by not using techniques, and finally the purpose of the painting by turning a blind eye to the form. The beginning of minimalistic thought might have tried to discover an invariability that can never be removed no matter how much it’s reduced, rather than contemplating what can be eliminated. Thus, what Martin revealed was not the ability to reduce, but a list of the "value" of those titles that can never disappear or be eliminated even if it’s subtracted by its multiples. Regardless of what reason or narrative is invented, we’ll ultimately return to naïve conclusions of joy, purity, love, freedom and friendship. Looking back, after all, all brilliant ideas and narratives ultimately ended up summarizing such values.

But I wish to take easy satisfaction in the public assessment that minimalism, in the bustling spectacles of today, attempted to create experience and space rather than reproduce. Or perhaps comfort myself, saying that it could count not what is remaining after reduction but fathom what has been eliminated through reduction, looking at the total quantity and remarking “how much could be removed.” But this is different from how it was in the beginning. In order to return to minimalism and Agnes to the beginning, the reduced bare form must be multiplied to reduction once again. Only then will the value emerge as a pure condensation, becoming manifest not as what has been eliminated but as what remains after the elimination. That way, we begin to remember what minimalism pledged at the time of its beginning. Agnes’ Sculpture traces back in time until Martin’s work turns into a form of a sketch. Martin didn’t reduce color and form until the end. But Lee tries to return to the beginning, a point in time when even the sketch was not drawn. Time headed to a moment of the biggest reduction devoid of even color, towards a futile moment where he couldn’t even approach the canvas but leave a mere trace on the wall. The markings left by the mechanical pencil will disappear also with the passing of time. But this time again, it’s not only the value that is reduced. And by this, we realize once again what the values are. It doesn’t matter how much one struggles and squirms. They are endless, because they never started.

With bumpy surface unsuitable for decorative work, a finishing that’s too coarse for lips and hands, and characteristics of clay that’s too soft and lumpy to contain anything, If Edmund didn’t have a spinning wheel does not permit anything that a work of pottery must demonstrate as a product. What’s evident in this work is the artist’s sloppy hands and poor skills, the time he had to pour into the work because of his sloppiness, and the poor quality of material. “Art” is the only identification that this pottery work is given, as it can never be used as a product. But there’s no way we can look away from the work. After all, the artist’s name, process of creation and the properties of the material are all there is to art. It was craft that implemented, from the onset, the slogan “Art as life”, claimed by the 20th century avant-garde. The pottery work kept up the night, making sure that the logic of exchange in everyday life and not in the art museum as a wall that protects the space where life resides and is closest to life is not disturbed. The work, which endured the agony of soil and fire and the artist’s indiscreet shabby hands, refused to adorn a part of the space even in the moment of monetary value exchange, and demanded of itself that it integrates with their life and accompanies the expressions of their life. Even if they were treated voyeuristically on one side of the display, they would radiate a sign of impersonal and equal life, as opposed to class. The pottery is made up of worthless soil and pebbles collected from the ground by its master, and is crafted with an inferior sensibility known to be inaccessible to noble life. But the exceptions to this nobleness became equal by forming a noble life in which they will reside.

The humble hands of the artisan, the challenging process and the lowly material compose the elegance of the owner of the pottery. The two contradictory values, one being the components of nobility and the other on the opposite side of nobility, are not differentiated. But in the face of mass production and machine manufacturing, the name, process and material property are all eliminated. The name is no longer that of an individual but the brand name of a factory. The process becomes one intended to conceal the hands of the artisan. And as for material; does it even look like there is soil and stones in it? If so, If Edmund didn’t have a spinning wheel were to retrace the craft practice, it would ultimately be the name, process and material that lies at the starting point. The bumpy surface of the work turns around the “process” of the sloppy hands, which couldn’t fully implement the work as planned in a hurry. The sense of flabbiness of the work, demonstrating the insufficiency of the material for it to become a piece of ornamental pottery, reverses the “material property” of the work. And the imprecision and coarseness related to the process and materiality of the work only bears the mark that it’s the product of the artist whose “name” will not be lost. The artist Edmund de Waal's ceramics have perfect curves that cannot be formed by hands. His works become complete only in a display cabinet, not in a residential space. The smooth surface hides the sense of material of his work. However, in the time of no throwing wheels as Lee refers to in the title of the work, everything that vanished is returned. If Edmund didn't have a spinning wheel can never be something that fits in a chest of ornaments and decorative pieces. The best place for this work is somewhere in the residential space, just scattered around as if neglected, murmuring of the old promise of the union of art and life.

Giorgio Morandi once said about his still life series, "I believe that nothing can be more abstract, more unreal, than what we actually see. We know that all we can see of the objective world never really exists as we see it and understand it. Matter exists of course, but has no intrinsic meaning, such as those we attach to it. Only we know that a cup is a cup, that a tree is a tree." For Morandi, still life is “a way of transcending time”. The objects made of different materials, such as glass, porcelain, and metal, exhibit a uniform texture at least in his paintings. Everything is flat, and there are no shadows here, as if time, flesh and blood have all disappeared. Morandi's paintings seek abstract essence beyond specific forms and situations, as specific objects turn to abstract concepts. Therefore, the affirmation that a 'cup is a cup' and 'tree is a tree' signifies the essence that does not change in any context. For some reason, however, Lee’s Morandi Sundae seems to have revived all of these specific details that are disappeared. The pastels that will break easily, the oil paint that will eventually dry and crack, and clay that will melt down in the end, seem to accept time in its entirety rather than transcend situation and time. Sundae is just a term referring to a temporary state of solid which will someday melt and disappear. When Morandi’s painting meets this solid, it starts to look different. There is no such thing as the eternity of objects and the world in which they are placed. Rather, the reverted past tries to claim that Morandi did not speak of the eternity of the world, but the world in face of eternity.

The idea of an eternal world may be sweet but there is something creepy about it. What if that world is hell? Or this world we live in right here and now? Would we be able to accept this eternity? In fact, the world is already considered to be something eternal. We have witnessed a world that does not change, despite the countlessly repeated tragedies and sorrows. If present is an outcome of having overcome the past, one could say that there is no element of past in time since 1991. And if the future becomes a possibility by denying the present, the future would not exist because we have not attempted to reject it but only modify it. We feel both disillusionment and helplessness towards the world due to lack of time. The subject with the ability to overcome and deny has vanished. On the contrary, in order to revive the subject, we must juxtapose eternity and the world, instead of relating the world to eternity. Lee’s work is about rewinding the time of the original. Morandi Sundae and Morandi’s Still Life (1931) are the same paintings with different time zones. If so, Still Life becomes something that faded (post-) facing the eternal time applied to Morandi Sundae, rather than being eternal objects. The brilliant colors and different materials of Morandi Sundae will be diminished little by little when juxtaposed with eternity, coming to have the achromatic colors and homogenous plane of Still Life. Even solid mountains become soft when faced with time. And confirmation of that, the existence finally becomes a subject that transforms the world by experiencing the past, present and future. That is the law of “eternity” that the subject promises. A cup is a cup and a tree is a tree: after all, these two are existences that disappear.

While the artist’s autonomy is something that lies in the image drawn on the canvas, then that would be something that cannot be found in doodling on the wall. The artist is absent in The Pigeon that Cy Raised, and this isn’t because the pigeon has a pen in its beaks. The pigeon does not represent a situation in which the artist is replaced by something else, in that the work does not reveal the autonomy of the pigeon over that of the artist. The pigeon is just a symbol of the artist’s absence. What exists here is only the “autonomy” of objects that seem to simply obey without going against orders and demands. We can’t say that what flows along a given groove or leans according to gravity is called 'life'. Just as something is given the status of art only when it has feared and broken loose from the countless paths drawn in art history, "life" occurs only after making other openings in the given grooves to create a new path, and propping the weight and walking away without being crushed by gravity. Objects do not appear to be immanent with life as long as they follow the orders and commands that made them exist. There is only a fixed purpose and standard. We will never be able to see on the wall, the freedom beyond that “wall,” no matter what, because they never fought with the commands and orders until that point. However, the marks on the walls of which their significance is unknown, create doubts about the absence. If all those circles are the product of art, what would that stain, or the scar beside it, or the entire wall for that matter, be if it weren’t the product of art (freedom)?

Cy Twombly's work stretches out of the canvas and not inside. The artist's child-like doodling penetrates the canvas and interacts with immaturity of outside. The insertion of countless circles like Twombly’s doodling transforms the patterns throughout the city, from a passionate perspective on art rather than a heartless perspective on objects. In other words, doodling produces something that is art“istic” from the surrounding, rather than making itself into art. I’m not trying to make an empty echo of the “Everything is art!” idea, but I am trying to remember that in the world that’s full of orders and commands, there is something that defies it and pursues life. After all, isn’t it the artist’s responsibility in the first place to make everything that’s not art—that is, artistic—into art? It is this first responsibility that Lee is trying to remind his audience. Just as If Edmund didn’t have a Spinning Wheel recalled the status of art with unskilled hands and insignificant material, Twombly's work signals the return to what is art“istic”, through the lack of skill of the laborer and outcome of non-discipline within the object itself, or precisely by proving the presence of freedom that doesn’t follow commands and orders. In time, freedom is found in the world of things. The recurring circle's trajectory is completed on Twombly's canvas, but does not end on the wall. That's probably why the bird's beak doesn't let go of the pencil even though it has drawn more circles than Twombly has. The segment is connected from one circle to another, continuing on life where it has been severed. For this, Twombly’s work is returned to the wall, an appropriate starting point.

It may be a groundless rumor that the word Geurim (Korean word for picture) has the same origin as the word Geurium (Korean word for longing), but nonetheless, this has some significance. Pictures and photographs are left to replace memories when it feels as though certain scenes of life no longer seem to exist. The record contains the joy that this moment is worth remembering, and the difficult emotion that this scene is disappearing. A record is a proof of presence as well as absence in that what is recorded cannot be revived. In that sense, one can understand Roni Horn’s concerns. "I think it’s more appropriate to express my longing for earth through the concept of animal migration rather than the idea that human travel." Water Double (2013~15), a work reproducing the glaciers the artist experienced in Iceland, combining the thrilling joy of his experience, with the sense of grief that the artist will not feel the same way about it even if he visits it again. And this work, which at a surface level reflects the artist’s longing for Iceland, also sheds light on the artist’s despair of absence at a deeper level. By releasing a work, the artist exhausts himself of the idea that will make him an artist so it cannot be used again. Once he makes something into an art work, the something that will be the subject of another work again may never come. The artist doesn’t have anything to identify himself, not even a name card or a certificate of income. The only thing that remains after the exhibition until his new works are presented is the proof of the past (that he was an artist). The artist always eliminates himself through the presentation of his work. A new work always appears as the last work, eternally with the resolution to disappear.

And if a new work appears as the last work for an artist, the new art will emerge from the ruins of the end of art. That's why the end of art is declared as profusely as its invigoration. There is always the possibility that nothing might happen after this moment in time; It may be the last in terms of time, but in order, it is in the first place. That must have been the kind of anxiety that Lee had to face as he retraced Roni Hon's time. If Water Double proves absence as a preserved state of experience and inspiration, Roni who went to Daiso proves absence as a preserved state of art itself. In other words, Roni who went to Daiso is preceded by the tragic idea that "art" itself may never exist again. While Roni Horn preserves experiences and inspirations in clear glass, Lee has preserved, in the tapes, the art that will no longer exist. Even if someone does not start a new work, it has already been loved enough and there are already works that will be loved in the future. New subjects do not emerge to the point where new attempts become meaningless, and only the same subject is repeated in new ways. In that case, then all the ends so far are right. Ironically, however, the work reaches a point of zero as a result. The vacant lot where the new building will be built, and the ruins where everything has collapsed, are not differentiated in that both are empty. It’s the same with the time when the creation of heaven and earth begins, or a point where there is no space or time so to speak. At the same time, it’s also a point that implies all places and times. If one is ready to be able to accept this emptiness, the ruin implies the possibility of all forms and colors being born from it.

3

The sea seen from the beach while walking is completely different from the sea seen while floating in the middle of it. The white butterfly is not afraid of the sea, because no one has taught it how deep the water is. When the butterfly nears the surface of the water thinking that it’s a radish field and gets its wings wet, it will have come to know the sea and no longer go near it. The realization that flowers do not bloom in the sea and that the ocean is harsh on butterfly wings will make it abandon its dreams about the sea. The wise one’s saying that “the one who never dreamt of a revolution in its youth is one without a heart, but the one who doesn’t change even after having passed it is one without a mind” resonates here for a long time. Why does wisdom take away first what’s most radical? Why does wisdom increase the number of things we shouldn't do rather than what we should do? Since I have unavoidably become a little wiser, I open up Keynes instead of Marx. However, in the beginning, Keynes talks about the “euthanasia of the rentier.” I will not be fooled any longer if there was resolution at the beginning of a position even if it’s been pushed out quite far. Eternal love and revolution are not in the future, but yesterday, so I can do so as I already have them (or pretend to). So I'm going to start without waiting. I will try to counter the uttering to myself, in a form that claims “there is too much freedom.” I will habitually act aggressively. I will be filled with contempt. I won't be afraid of violence. I murmur quietly again. Rentiers should definitely be euthanized.

“Hey, have I changed a lot?” This question is always in my mind, but it’s something I could never ask. And my cowardice and smallness are nothing new. I always groaned more about my short pain than the long tragedy of others, always plotting on running away and focusing more on uncomfortable position than desperate confession. Then at one point, I said “I’ll quit now,” and you asked if I have ever started exercising, and what I think exercise is. In a life that is always nearing completion, EVERGREEN rewinds everything to the beginning, regardless of the wisdom and achievements time has accumulated. Through the exhibition, we are demanded of the courage to reveal that we are an existence that can go anywhere, be anything, and say anything. Lee wrote the following in a collection of letters written with Han Sung-woo: "Let's finish our conversation incomplete like our works….Let’s first wrap it up, with my drawing incomplete in drawn and erased state, and with your painting coated over and over again to indefiniteness. And then after some time, let’s carry on our conversation. That would be fun." If we stay in a state of being erased and indeterminate, we will be able to soak up the joy in knowing that the dream is still there because we haven’t even started, rather than worrying about losing what we have accumulated and achieved. Even though my beginnings eat up my life like sea crabs, I must enjoy the joy of the dark days of going out to the beach. Friend, I swear to you: it’ll be white somehow.

References

Kim, Ki-rim. “Sea and Butterfly”, 女性, 1939

Pasternak, Boris. “Wet Paint”, The Stones on the Ground, Jeongwoosa, 1996

Shin, Seok-jeong. “Flower Bush”, Shin Seok-jeong Poetry, zmanzbooks, 2013

Lee, Seong-bok. Your Pain can’t even Turn a Single Leaf Green, Munhakdongne Publishing Group, 2014

Lee, Hyunsoo & Han, Seong-woo, Conversation of Fools, Fedora Press, 2019.

Lyotard, Jean-François. “Sublime and the Avant Garde”, The End of Intellectuals, Moonye Publishing Co., 1993.

Ranciere, Jacques. Translated by Park Ki-soon, Aisthesis, 2019.

Jin, Eun-young. Atopos of Literature, Green Bee Books, 2014.