Lot 861: KIM DONG YOO

KIM DONG YOO
(Born in 1965)
Monroe VS Kennedy
oil on canvas
227.5 x 181 cm. (89 1/2 x 71 1/4 in.)
Painted in 2007

Seoul, Korea, Leehwaik Gallery, 2008

Leehwaik Gallery, Seoul, South Korea

Private Collection

Deeply engaged in materialistic culture, Kim formed an aesthetic formula of constructing a diagrammatic format with multiple microscopic portraits, harmonized with coy control of tonal gradient to emit a larger image of a final portrait. When perceived under the light of contemporary discourse, his portraitures arise as an acute critique, aimed at defining the result of globalization and reproduction; moreover as a deep contemplation and examination on the theory of icon, dissecting its emblem, or even dissecting its semiotic concept.

Both Marilyn Monore and John F. Kennedy are strangled within the pressured grid, generating an impression of media frenzy, where construction of their identity has been controlled and manipulated, furthermore consumed by society. The role of the multiple microscopic portraits in Monroe VS Kennedy (Lot 861) is evident, reading a sequence of speculation between the two icons, Marilyn Monroe and John. F. Kennedy. The serially determined composition becomes a poignant indication in this oeuvre, akin to Gogh VS Gogh (Lot 519) as the aesthetic fluidity is undermined in comparison to his predictably organized earlier work of Marilyn Monroe (Lot 862). The earlier work conveys a closer similarity to graphic pixels, as their tightly repetitive modernist grid immediately offer computer graphic distortion. Monroe is flatter and smoother in form than Van Gogh and Kennedy, perhaps in Kim's premeditated decision in describing the smooth, charismatic allure of Monroe. In contrary, Kennedy is intensely described in three dimensional illusions, obviously due to the varying miniscule pixels that breed depth and texture, but also in Kim's intuitive control in lighting that best bring about Kennedy's clean-cut, smart demeanor. Like so, Kim's suave riddle of contradiction between the physical fact and the psychological effect is what makes his painting variably unique to everyone's perceptual experience also drawing critical attention to the construction of images.

Kim serves a great breadth of variation on a single motif by presenting flexibility in the spectator's vision to look for the object, look among the objects or look at an object; in chorus, managing to enlighten the audience that object multiplies and changes under our very eyes. He demonstrates that illusion of sight has its interesting values by rejecting to confine vision as something singularly related to the mechanism of the eye, uttering that there are narratives that we cannot discern physiologically and psychologically.