Lot 1397: ZU DO YANG

ZU DO YANG
(B. 1976)
Landscape; & Landscape
signed 'Zu Do Yang' in English (lower right of each work); numbered 'I/V' (lower left of each work); inscribed, dated and signed 'pigment print 10 September 2010 Zu Do Yang' in English (on a label on the reverse of each work)
two pigment prints on cotton paper
each: 121 x 118.8 cm. (47 5/8 x 46 3/4 in.) (2)
edition 1/5
Executed in 2002; printed by the artist in 2010 (2)

Seoul, Korea, Seoul Auction Center, LANDSCAPE-X-ray, 12-20 October 2002 (different sized version exhibited).

Prior to discovering that the earth was a sphere, Plato once quoted that Earth would bear a resemblance to "one of those balls which have leather coverings in twelve pieces, and is decked with various colours, of which the colours used by painters on earth are in the manner samples." Zu Do Yang attends to Plato's prophecy and reiterates his expansive vision by breaking the scientific visual limitation of the human eye, merging methods of photography and collage for a result that is fantastically precise yet hallucinatory and illusory, tuning with atmospheric colours of the night.

Zu executes continuous panorama shots in rotation and meticulously collages them in fluid motion, demonstrating his painterly sensibility in harmonizing the tonal gradation and colours of each picture in anamorphic perspective. His early investigation on convex lenses is manifested in Landscape; & Landscape (Lot 1397) but in delicate exaggeration echoes the ancient Chinese idiom of 'sky is round and ground is square.' Zu continues to explore our perceptive sphere in his deliberate choice of photography, comprehending the potency of the media in creating an impression of reality by knowingly skewing the way of seeing with hemispherical photography to challenge and perplex us. The event is captured and the moment is suspended in Park 8; & Park 5 (Lot 1398) with their globular forms that symbolize infinity with untraceable beginning or end. Devoid of vanishing points, angles and defying gravity, the darkly lit park airs a mysterious aura of phenomenon, appearing in resemblance to a stellar remnant from a distance.