Q. I think your works have focused on a body by now. Do you regard yourself as a 'body sculptor?'
A. I have never given a priority to a body itself in my work. A body is just an object to me. I would say that a body has been a good object to express a life, and that's the reason I choose it.
Q. Your works seem to be away from a direct expression or an aesthetic production of a body. However, frankly speaking, I would like to point out your attitude to stick to a traditional theme, a body, compared to other sculptors of the same age who have attempted bold experiments.
A. A sculpture of a human body is very familiar to people. So, they may not be able to find freshness from it. However, I do not concentrate on freshness at the beginning. I just enjoy finding out a variety of life of human beings little by little as opening my eyes to the world gradually.
Q. I am a little bit doubt about that you do not care about freshness as a contemporary artist.
A. Devoting for freshness is a kind of the features of contemporary arts. However, freshness exists not only in a new thing but an old one. In my case, freshness would be found in my trial to change relationships between me and objects.
Q. I think your works in the day you studied abroad focused on lines. But, your first private exhibition seems to be disconnected from the feature.
A. Themes of both works are based on power. The subject is still alive in my works. It is sometimes presented as lines and sometimes as a vague, lump form without specific expression. The works created when I studied abroad are born through a process to break the Realism. I wanted to get into the point without superfluity. That is represented with lines. Each line means a realistic existence of spirits torn apart. Even at that time, there were some works with volume. I made a specific form into a lump by hitting or driving with a lump of steel or a wooden bat. In the end, emotions were concentrated and then the volume became distinctive. I think such massive works appeared in my first private exhibition in 1992.
Q. You have mentioned the words like 'power' or 'energy' as essence of your sculpture by now. Can I interpret the improvisatory attitude in your recent works as a way to capture a power of life more vividly?
A. While engaged in drawing, I realized that the power of life was embedded in the action of gathering certain thoughts into emotion, spreading it throughout the body and having it reach certain materials by using the appropriate tools. In fact, a succinct phrase can often be more intense than a long piece of prose. Although some may say that my actions of drawing or hitting stones with an iron maul are extemporary, I perform these actions for a number of intentions. In other words, I would like to describe my actions in work as writing a poem by gathering various thoughts and releasing them with emotion.
Q. So far, your selection of materials has been very interesting. From the latter half of the 1980s, you started using plaster and rotten wood. Recently, you are using railroad ties, coal and various stones. What would be the consistency, if any, that connects all of these together?
A. There were times in which I thought only bronze or marble was the material to be used for a complete piece of sculpture. Many sculptors use plaster, but they tend to regard it only as a material for the study of a final piece. I liked the fresh feeling of plaster. The fact that I did not have money was also an important link. Railroad ties, asphalt concrete, stones etc... These were trivial, insignificant and easy to find. They all suffered through the times of ordeal, and were merely thrown-away wastes. I liked their rawness, liveliness.
Q. You once said that what raised you was earth and what let you express yourself was railroad ties. How did you come to use railroad ties or what do you feel about this material?
A. In fact, I had been keeping my eyes on the enormous energy of sleepers long before I started using them in my work. One day, I found a railroad ties thrown away and I vividly felt its pain of having endured, the heavy weight of rails and rainstorm over the years. It came to me as if a human and history. Although a waste that no one would look at, it appeared to hold enormous energy inside. I liked it, but could not easily work with it. Maybe, it was like seeing something that was stronger that I was. I had to just look at railroad ties for over 10 years as if with unreciprocated love. It was probably in 1998 when I could finally start working with it because I felt I had accumulated enough energy for it.
Q. Tell me about your drawing work?
A. In order to bring back the initial emotions, I make drawings as if leaving a note or keeping a journal. It takes several weeks to complete a single piece of sculpture and drawing was an appropriate way to keep the numerous thoughts and emotions popping out in the course of it. Working with a model in front of me takes away liveliness of my piece. So, I try to place as many drawings as possible in front of me and to watch them while working so that I can continuously feel my emotions. This way, I don't have to create emotions. They just pop out.
Q. The overall aspects in the sculpture world of Korea at the moment do not seem all that bright. The medium of sculpture itself is dying.
A. I thoroughly recognize the ebbing of sculpture. But, what is ebbing particularly is the 'reproductive, realistic and monumental sculpture'. On the other hand, the scope of sculpture is expanding amid the experiments of medium expansion and genre escaping of the recent times. I would like to describe my sculpture as the sculpture that regresses into primitive point of generation. In other words, it is 'sculpture at the point where the fore and the rear meet'. I would like to emphasize that I am not the master of the medium of sculpture, that I have already surpassed the limitations of traditional sculpture and that I am trying to revive the areas ruled out by sculpture.
Q. What do you like to do in the future?
A. I will try to get away from the uselessly serious works. I want to find the ways of converting heaviness and representing it lightly.