Artist talk

Presentation- Minho Kwon
In this presentation, I focused on one particular drawing by an artist called Minho Kwon. I saw his work in London at the Jerwood gallery for the Jerwood drawing prize. This particular piece of work is called 'Neo Tower of Babel' and is pencil on tracing paper.

I was interested by the structural nature of this drawing. Usually anything structural doesn't usually catch my interest but this intriged me. After doing some research on Kwon, it appears that his inspiration for his drawings could have stemmed from the regmented structure of his past in Korea, where he lived for most of his life. He intends for his work to respond to the world in which he lives.

He was introduced to architecture from an early age, so combined the two together to create the juxtaposition between the history and the politics of Korea. The result of this reveals drawings almost resembling an architects blueprint.

"These architectural elements are more than the means to an end; they are capable of acting as a metaphor, thereby revealing the imaginative scope of the work as a whole" Minho Kwon

His work at the Jerwood is a reconstruction of the Tower of Babel, which is something which forms the focus of a story told in the book of Genesis of the Bible. The story summed up is man set out to build the Tower of Babel, arrogantly assuming their technological skill would enable them to reach God. This angered God and to punish man he divided the language they spoke. Kwon's drawings visualize his interpretation of a new Tower. It also shows architecture from the Classical and Medieval through to the industrial and modern periods. The overlaying predictions depict the main sources of power from each of these periods.

Kwon wants to provoke questions such as whether we have already reached God or because of our arrogant nature we will be punished again. His technique of provoking these are to show the traces of human civilization; man's eternal drive towards God.

Feedback
In the feedback, we further discussed the idea that this is Kwon's way of saying human civilisation is becoming too advanced and too arrogant. Questions were asked as to why there was something which looked like a Centar in the drawing. I wasn't able to find any information about this and everyone including myself found it particularly odd that there was something organic in such a structured geometric drawing. My guess is that is has something to link to the religious side of it, perhaps mocking the Christian story by adding a mythological creature in there.

Another thing which was discussed in the feedback were the faint, horizontal pencil lines which went all across Kwon's drawing. On first glance, it looks like they're just used for a backdrop to help construct the drawing. But it was mentioned by someone else that they could have an alternative meaning. With the lines not erased, the drawing looks unfinished. And this could link to the fact that that Kwon's 'Tower' is never finshed, t's still being constructed because of the speed that the human race is advancing.