Artist Gwon Osang Redefines Sculpture Through Photography

Deodorant Type with Photo Sculpture

The Flat 13, 2005

Westwood, 2015

2011 October (3D), 2012

The Flat 15, 2005

Relief 5, 2016

Relief 7, 2016

Solo Exhibitions (Brief)

Gwon exhibited <540 Statements About Twins> at the group exhibition 《Vacuum Packed》 (1999) held at Alternative Space Loop (Seoul, Korea), the first private non-profit organization in Korea. This work is meaningful in that it is the artist’s first ‘photo sculpture’.

In 2001, he held his first solo exhibition, 《Deodorant Type》, at Insa Art Space (Seoul, Korea), the first public non-profit organization in Korea. From this time on, Gwon’s ‘photo sculpture’ began to be known in earnest.

From 2005 to 2007, he exhibited actively on the international stage, including Andrew Shire Gallery in LA (LA, USA), Union Gallery (London, UK), and Arario Beijing (Beijing, China).

In particular, in 2008, he held a solo exhibition at the invitation of Manchester Art Gallery (Manchester, England), one of the major art museums in the UK. This exhibition received a great response by presenting a total of 14 works, including new works produced while staying in Manchester for one month. Through this exhibition, Osang Gwon was recognized for his skills on the international stage, and it was a good opportunity to carry out more international activities, such as producing an album cover for the rock band KEANE.

In 2011, he exhibited Ando Fine Art in Berlin (Berlin, Germany), and moved into Doosan Residency New York, a non-profit organization operated by Doosan Group, one of the leading companies in Korea, and held a solo exhibition (2011) at Doosan Gallery New York. A full-fledged overseas expansion has taken place.

Since after 2012, he has been actively exhibiting around the world, including Norway, Singapore, Paris, Japan, and Australia.

Group Exhibitions (Brief)

Gwon Osang has been active in the scene since the early days of his work, receiving a lot of attention and interest. In the 2000s, when the world art world was booming, he was invited to numerous special exhibitions held at major national and international art museums, corporate art galleries, and major galleries.

For example, 《Young Artists from Korea, China and Japan》 held at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in 2004 was a meaningful exhibition examining the presence of Asian contemporary art through the works of young artists representing Korea, China and Japan.

The exhibition 《Korean Eye: Fantastic Ordinary》 held at Saatchi Gallery in London (2010) was an exhibition that invited young Korean artists. This exhibition introduced young Korean artists, who were very noteworthy at the time, to London, the center of European contemporary art.

In addition, 《Present Tense》, 2010, National Portrait Gallery Canberra, Canberra, Australia, 《Collector’s Stage》, 2011, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore, 《On Manner of Forming》, 2012, Edwin Gallery2, Jakarta, Indonesia. The artist participated in numerous domestic and international special exhibitions, such as the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Gwangju Museum of Art 《Jin.Tong. Korean Contemporary Art since 1990》,《Tech 4 Change》, 2015, Best Forssen, Norway, has demonstrated its capabilities.

Awards (Selected)

The artist was awarded the 27th ‘Kim Sechoong Youth Sculpture Award’. ‘Kim Sechoong Youth Sculpture Award’ is a statue created in commemoration of the artist’s life after the death of sculptor Kim Sechoong.

In 1990, the award categories were subdivided and ‘Kim Sechoong Youth Sculpture Award’ was established for young sculptors under the age of 40. The artist won the award in 2013 through the ‘Deodorant Type’ series.

Collections (Selected)

Gwon Osang’s works are in the collections of not only national, public and private art museums in Korea, but also major art galleries abroad.

Major domestic collections include the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul, Korea), Leeum Samsung Museum of Art (Seoul, Korea), Seoul Museum of Art, Busan Museum of Art, Art Sonje Center, and Leeum, as well as major national and public art museums representing Korea. CI KIM, one of the collectors, also owns several works.

Overseas, prominent art galleries and private collectors such as David Roberts Art Foundation, The Zabludowicz Collection (London, UK), Burger Collection, Universal Music Group, and Singapore Museum own Gwon Osang’s works.

Originality & Identity

The artist Gwon Osang got a reputation as a representative of ‘Photo-Sculpture’. In addition to the sculptor François Willème, who created the term ‘Photo-Sculpture’ in 1863, the artistic trials to combine 2-dimensional photography with 3-dimensional sculpture are found in artistic experiments of collaborating photography and sculpture in the 1960s and 1970s. However, Gwon Osang perfectly fused with the sculpture and photography as a focal point of the up-to-date genre, the artist Gwon had newly created. Thereby the expansion of the boundaries of contemporary art is to be continued.

Gwon Osang literally makes sculptures with photos. ‘Flatness’ and ‘lightness’ are the right expressions to explain the characters of the materials of the sculptures so that the clusters with photo pieces are shown as a whole. In the early period of the ‘Deodorant Type’, advocating the slight and sleek pieces of its feature, it was prone to focus on the photo mechanism. Afterwards, there exist the fundamentals through the series he produced. This redefined the meaning of conventional sculpture understanding (named ‘The Sculpture’) and asked about the relations between sculpture and spaces (named ‘New Structure’).

Thereafter the artist Gwon actively adopted carving methodology (named ‘relief’) or studied patterns of the basic notion of the sense of volume and mass (named ‘Mass Patterns’). Namely, the most important focal point is in ‘carving’, even though both photos and sculptures are crucial in his artworks.

“The fundamentals, I am totally into the story of ‘How human beings have been living by carving’.”

His representative works are shown like ‘Deodorant Type,’ ‘The Flat,’ ‘New Structure,’ ‘Relief’, ‘Mass Patterns,’ etc, which mostly emphasize formativeness used by downloaded images from the internet. These are in progress randomly, and growing by influencing in between series.

The thing for which Gwon Osang, as a modern carving sculptor, wants to make a voice is ‘NOW’ in the current era where everyone is living. The artist contemplates how many perspectives to read when designing a work, enlarging the narrative of objects and humans’ possibilities of carving and art in the current era.

Style & Contents

The preliminary materials of Gwon Osang’s artworks are photo images.

However, the process of making a 3-dimensional object as well as what finished artwork is nothing less than a sculptural work. An automobile shaped object is composed of a bronze sculpture finishing in-real shape only with image information and painted with acrylic paint; titled – The Sculpture. It is an experimental attempt by configuring random objects into clustered objects expressing a new form of mass – Mass Patterns. These artworks represent clearly that artist Gwon Osang’s production.

Ultimately, a crucial point of art is most artworks are transformed and expanded sustainably under the core goal of exploring the formativeness of new paradigm transformation.

The method and process of the artist, Gwon, is a style of exhibiting space and utilising the pedestal display. This is a quite unique aspect of his artwork. For instance, in his current work, multiple exhibits tilted form-like objects such as < A Family Photo of 440 Pieces Composed of Tenacity >(1998-1999). The work < Hockney >(2013) is displayed as it stands with the Hockney’s Swimming Pool series. In 2008, Osang Gwon’s sole exhibition 《Deodorant Type: Sculpture by Osang Gwon》 was held at the Manchester City Museum 2008. The cubistic styling for exhibition curation and the impact of artworks are supreme by 3-dimensional space with different heights of pedestals.

In Gwon Osang’s recent exhibition, the creative exhibition is illustrated with various series of works matching with space like a movie set, collaborating a creative group OUR LABOUR, named 《OUR SET: OUR LABOUR x GWON OSANG》(2022, Su-won Artspace, at Su-won Korea). He showed off a new notion of exhibition unusual in a conventional art gallery.

The symbolic value of Gwon Osang’s artwork is shown in his displaying style in different exhibiting places. It regards various curation settings giving elements explaining the relationship between the arts and the viewers. This is a focal point where Gwon Osang’s work is interpreted by audiences openly.

Constancy & Continuity

Gwon Osang’s reputation with his artwork is emerging as a new position in Korea’s Contemporary Art. He grew up with the domestic contemporary art history paradigm. There were boom years when the Korean contemporary art market and the global contemporary art market exponentially increased in the 2000s. The Korean art market was lacking compared to the western one, however, it was full of great possibilities to shade grey areas for new artists.

Meanwhile, Gwon Osang made his debut with the 1st alternative room for authorizing important roles for the current art world. He exhibited his debut work named 《Vacuum Packaging》(1999, Seoul) in the alternative loop group exhibition. Some critics commented “A quicker, more sophisticated, and perfect debut than any others.” – Han Seung RYU. This underlines that Gwon Osang has received great attention and reputation since his debut, and his artworks have been uplifted from the art market.

Thereafter, he worked as an exclusive artist at Kukje Gallery and Arario Gallery, and overgrown domestic and international art galleries and biennales. It has a significant meaning that both the artist and art industry grew mutually in this era, and led to the transformation of the Korean contemporary art paradigm.

The uniqueness and importance of Gwon Osang’s art world have gotten a large spotlight abroad. His works brought a crucial mark on art history in terms of expanding the boundaries of sculpture while reflecting the reality of modern society. Further, his work has been introduced in both eastern and western countries, including Japan, France, Italy, and the Netherlands. The representative examples are the 2008 Asia Triennale held in England and a solo exhibition at the Manchester Museum of Art in the UK.

Participating in a short-term residency program in the UK made connections with officials from the UK x Asia Triennial Manchester. Since then, Gwon Osang also launched a relationship with the Manchester City Museum. This received great attention, drawing up to 870 visitors in a day. There were 14 pieces of ‘Deodorant Type’ displayed, and from 2008 to 2009, the number of visitors to the museum was about 420,000. This figure represented that his artwork got a great spotlight in the UK.

At that time, as a young and newborn artist without any special connection to England, Gwon Osang smashed the largest art market with his art pieces in the UK. Underlying the meaning of art’s historical value provides supporting evidence with only his artworks.

Artist_K-Artist

Artist Gwon Osang Redefines Sculpture Through Photography

December 17, 2024

A Team

Gwon Osang (b. 1974), known for his so-called "photo-sculptures," has continuously questioned the identity of sculpture while exploring new structural forms. Through the medium of photography, he has carried out various experimental and innovative sculptural attempts that challenge the traditional modes of existence of sculpture.

Gwon Osang, Family Photo of 440 Pieces Composed of Tenacity, 1998-1999 ©Gwon Osang

Gwon Osang conceived lightweight sculptures using two-dimensional photographic images printed on paper, rather than relying on traditional, heavy materials like marble. His exploration of sculptural forms through the medium of photography began to take shape with the Deodorant Type series, which he started in the early 1998s.

The term “Deodorant Type” is a compound word coined by Gwon himself. It combines "deodorant," a product that conveniently replaces an existing smell with another, and "type," a term commonly used in photographic processes such as ambrotype and daguerreotype.

Gwon Osang, A Statement of 540 Pieces on Twins, 1999 ©Gwon Osang

By attaching the word "type," as though it were a term already existing in the history of photographic techniques, the artist presented his ontological exploration of sculpture through its fusion with the medium of photography. Inspired by the slightly off-kilter phenomenon of deodorants—items largely unnecessary for East Asians—being heavily advertised, this series reveals a divergence and misalignment from its subject during the process of creating three-dimensional forms, despite being photographic in essence.

To achieve this, the artist produced three-dimensional photo-sculptures by cutting and pasting hundreds of photographic images taken from various angles of the subject. Additionally, he utilized features inherent to photography, such as enlargement, reduction, and duplication. For instance, A Statement of 540 Pieces on Twins (1999) consists of two sculptural figures created from a single photographic source, showcasing an ambiguous existence where reality and illusion intertwine.

Gwon Osang, Hockney, 2013 ©Gwon Osang

While Gwon's early works were primarily created using photographic images he captured himself, his later pieces were made using images sourced from magazines, advertisements, and the internet. Additionally, whereas the early Deodorant Type works were hollow in structure, later iterations evolved to use forms made from rigid Styrofoam (Iso Pink), which were then entirely covered with photographic images.

Gwon Osang, Westwood, 2015 ©Gwon Osang

The sculptural exploration initiated with the Deodorant Type series reflects a contemplation of sculpture in a modern context through the lens of contemporary imagery. For instance, in the later work Westwood (2015), Gwon reintroduced the pedestal—a characteristic of traditional sculpture—while applying a contemporary sculptural language interpreted by the artist.

Thus, while the mechanisms of the photographic medium are a significant element in his photo-sculptures, Gwon's works fundamentally engage with questions about the methodologies and ontology of traditional sculpture, examining the very nature of "sculpture" itself.

Gwon Osang, The Flat 2, 2004 ©Gwon Osang

In 2003, Gwon introduced The Flat series, which presented flat sculptures created by collecting contemporary images commonly found in magazines. This series consists of images the artist had meticulously gathered since 1999, primarily featuring luxurious objects such as watches and jewelry.

The process involved cutting out the magazine images along their outlines and attaching wires to the back of the cutouts to make them stand upright on the ground. After constructing these flat images into a three-dimensional form, Gwon ultimately reconverted them into a photographic work, returning to the flat medium.

Gwon Osang, The Flat 15, 2005 ©Gwon Osang

Through The Flat, Gwon repeatedly explored this reversal process, raising questions about one of sculpture's central themes: the relationship between flatness and three-dimensionality. Moreover, the intricate interplay between the flat and the three-dimensional in The Flat reveals a clear connection to his earlier Deodorant Type series, furthering his investigation of sculptural concepts through the medium of photography.

Gwon Osang, The Sculpture 2-Car, 2005 ©Gwon Osang

In contrast to his earlier series, Gwon’s The Sculpture series, introduced in 2005, does not emphasize photography as a primary sculptural material. Instead, the artist gathered information about his subjects—luxury supercars such as Lamborghinis—from sources like the internet, books, magazines, and miniature car models without directly observing the actual objects. Based on this research, he created sculptures using traditional bronze, which he then painted with acrylic to resemble lightweight plastic objects.

Gwon Osang, The Sculpture 2-Car(detail), 2005 ©Gwon Osang

Although the The Sculpture series differs in physical characteristics from his earlier photo-sculpture series, it remains connected through its reinterpretation and contemporary adaptation of traditional sculpture. This series reimagines the historical intent of traditional sculpture, which sought to closely approximate an idealized reality, within a modern context.

By using supercars—symbols of today’s capitalist utopia—as his subject and combining the classical material of bronze with playful interventions like orange acrylic paint, Gwon prompts reflections on the meaning of traditional sculpture in the contemporary era.

Gwon Osang, New Structure, 2016, Installation view of “Gwon Osang: New Structure and Relief” (Arario Gallery, 2016) ©Arario Gallery

In his 2016 solo exhibition “Gwon Osang: New Structure and Relief” at Arario Gallery, Gwon introduced the New Structure and Relief series, which continue to build upon his earlier works. In the New Structure series, Gwon expanded the concept of flat sculptures seen in The Flat series, transforming them into larger-scale, more solid installations, thus broadening the discussion of sculpture into spatial dimensions.

For New Structure, Gwon enlarged collected images of objects and crafted them as flat forms, which were then structured into standing installations. Rather than adhering to a specific narrative or purpose, Gwon allowed his process to be autonomous and unconscious, focusing primarily on aesthetic judgment in shaping the forms. The space created by New Structure, though devoid of a specific narrative, possesses the unique spatiality and theatricality of sculpture, enabling it to generate and convey events through its presence alone.

In the New Structure series, Gwon Osang explored the relationship between sculpture and space, while in the Relief series, he actively employed modeling techniques to sculpturally arrange contemporary images, reflecting his engagement with current cultural contexts.

For the Relief series, Gwon selected images from ‘Wallpaper,’ a design magazine known for capturing global cultural trends with speed and precision. He arranged and combined these selected images on flat wooden panels, layering them to transform the two-dimensional surface into a three-dimensional sculptural form through a modeling process.

As with his other works, there is no specific narrative or concrete meaning embedded within the collected images. The creation process involves repetitive acts of adding and subtracting image clusters in an improvised and unconscious manner.

Gwon Osang's recent works delve into the abstraction of sculpture, inspired by the fragmented and perforated forms characteristic of 20th-century British sculptor Henry Moore. By studying Moore's treatment of the human figure, where bodies are deconstructed into abstract shapes or include voids, Gwon integrates these concepts into his photo-sculpture practice, evolving his distinct visual language.

The Reclining Figure series (2020–), an homage to Henry Moore, features abstract and organically composed human figure sculptures that merge photography and sculpture. The photographic images placed on the abstract sculptural forms provide a sense of visual dynamism to the static shapes by featuring various temporal and spatial backgrounds or overlapping perspectives.

In contrast to his earlier photo-sculptures, which were created by attaching photographic paper, the Reclining Figure series marks a shift as Gwon began printing images on matte fabric, introducing a change in the sculptural form and texture. By inflating the structures with air and fixing their forms, these works evolved into massive sculptural installations that occupy substantial portions of exhibition spaces.

Gwon's ongoing investigation into the identity of sculpture serves as the central thread connecting his various series. Each body of work influences and informs the next, creating an organic, interconnected evolution of ideas. Rooted in his focus on contemporary life, Gwon's practice consistently reflects contemporality while engaging in innovative experiments with form and medium. His ability to merge different media seamlessly not only pushes the boundaries of art but also offers a fresh perspective on what sculpture can represent in today's context.

“The fundamentals, I am totally into the story of ‘How human beings have been living by carving’.” (Gwon Osang, Artist’s Note)

Gwon Osang graduated from the Department of Sculpture of Hongik University College of Fine Arts and obtained his master's degree from the graduate school of the same university. He has held solo and collaborative exhibitions at Lotte Avenuel Art Hall (Seoul, 2023), Ilmin Museum of Art (Seoul, 2022), Suwon Museum of Art (Suwon, Korea, 2022), Arario Gallery (Seoul, Korea; Shanghai, China, 2016), among others.

His solo exhibitions have been showcased worldwide at venues such as Hermès (Sydney, Australia, 2016), Waterfall Gallery (New York, US, 2016), Okinawa Contemporary Art Center (Okinawa, Japan, 2015), Joyce Paris (Paris, France, 2014), HADA Contemporary (London, UK, 2013), Manchester Art Gallery (Manchester, UK, 2008).

Group exhibitions showcasing his works have been held at Arario Gallery (Seoul, 2024; 2023; 2018; 2014; 2011; 2010), Gyeongnam Art Museum (Changwon, Korea, 2023), V&A Museum (London, UK, 2023), The Shop House (Hong Kong, 2022), Daelim Museum (Seoul, 2020), National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul, 2015), Singapore Art Museum (Singapore, 2014), and Saatchi Gallery (London, UK, 2010). His works are part of the collections at institutions including the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul Museum of Art, Busan Museum of Art, and Leeum Museum of Art in Korea.

References

Articles

Artist_K-Artist Artist Gwon Osang Redefines Sculpture Through Photography 2024.12.17

Museum_Exhibition “Art as the Doorway to the Unseen” on View Through November 24, 2024, at Seoul National University Museum of Art 2024.10.29

Artist_News Artist Gwon Osang’s ‘New Structure’ Installed at INSPIRE Rotunda 2024.08.06

Gallery_Exhibition MOON Shin and GWON Osang’s Dual Exhibition “Carving in, Modeling out”, on View Through June 22, 2024, at ARARIO GALLERY SEOUL 2024.05.07