On Chanoo Park

A Perfect Transparent Frame

Noam Kim

Art Curator

1

Are there any artists who do not sense their own existence? Everything began from there. According to existentialism, 

humans are beings thrown into the world for no reason. They are just individuals who are on their way to death. 

Existence itself is like the dizziness one experiences once aboard on a boat. It is to cultivate life in a fluid state rather 

than on a solid ground. In a world full of worries, it is difficult to think and express clearly because it is cluttered 

with so many ideas and images. Is it possible to disassemble the hours of the daily life composed of heterogeneous 

things and be

rewarded with a moment of transparency where one can focus just on oneself? The more important the problem, the more we forget about it. When faced with such a question, one just laughs at it or thinks it is a pathetic one. The more important the question, the more artists are bound to be interested. Therefore, in the overflow of excessive 

sensual stimulation and images, we become more sensitive in seeking the image as a fundamental and prototypical 

element. Here, the frame appears as a mysterious technology. It is the technology of meditation for meeting and 

understanding the world. Images and frames are keywords.

Chanoo Park's intuition extracts the sentiment from objects and images encountered in everyday life and transfers 

them into the photographs. Like an alchemist, the artist mixes objects and images, liberating consciousness and 

unconsciousness. It appears that books (encyclopedias), letter images of printed texts, signs and symbols that 

surrounded the artist in his childhood made searing impressions in his unconscious mind like a tattoo. This had a profound influence on the artist's photography. It was remindful of a certain order and moral law like the letters 

recorded on the Ten Comments. The encyclopedic world in which all the objects and names that make up the world were engraved appeared 

repeatedly in a gigantic image. An oval boulder submerged in water in an empty white space and books and text 

images in blur motion are completely different subjects, but considering that the first book was written on stone, the 

boulder and the book can be understood as identical objects for mankind.

The photographs of a round stone on which the records of nature which cannot be easily comprehended have been 

engraved along with its reflection in the water, and images of letters printed on books shimmering as if the world is 

dancing hint to us where the eyes of the artist are pointing.

2

Chanoo Park tried to capture the clear moments, clear to the degree that one can even see the moisture in the air, 

of text images pushed into the background of memories and traces of consciousness, and the unknown complete 

space where gravity has disappeared. The keyword 'frame' in this exhibition shows both the continuity and 

disconnection from previous works. Cutting, pasting, and creating new images are the same, but images that include 

both the inside and the outside of the frame aim for an ideal "complete" frame. In the process of placing an unknown 

object within the range of perception unchanged regardless of any circumstances, the frame is used like an alchemist's secret tool. Frames that connect the world and people are strength and a certain will.

On the other hand, frames are relative and smooth. The deeper the thought, the more delicate the senses, and the 

richer the emotions, the more flexible the perspective and frame of looking at the world. They can be round, square, or triangular.

Frames of unknowable shapes are also possible. When one looks at the world and oneself, there are cases where one sets a certain standard or frame in advance, but some frames just spontaneously come to exist as one gets on with 

one's life. Frames can trap you but it can also serve as a stepping stone advancing you into the broader world in 

depth. The artist can meet the world through an aesthetic or aesthetic frame.

Expanding on the artist's idea, it is through a perfect frame that a complete reality (existence) can be reproduced as an image. However, a complete frame is like Borges' 'Aleph', where aesthetic metaphysics that cannot be experienced 

in everyday reality are possible in the world. The vision of this perfect frame, possible in the realm of aesthetic 

ideology, is like an instant flash of lightning. It is a complete frame that is allowed only to a perfect being who has 

suddenly become empow-ered. For imperfect everyday humans, it is a world that is always reachable, but the 

boundary can never be reached. Therefore, Chanoo Park's photography image is an instantaneous 'expression' in 

which the ideal frame visible in between moments in the reality of everyday life perfectly coincides with the world. His 

photographs can never become 'records. A photographic image already contains a certain aspect of reality in which 

ideas and materials are fused. It is a record, an interpretation, and an expression at the same time. Therefore, it is 

outside the record limited to information or knowledge. Moreover, a photographic image containing an artist's personal 

experience and vision cannot escape the individual's point of view. A person cannot be both individual and universal 

at the same time. However, the image makes us feel a certain power to transcend these human conditions, like the 

way it metaphorizes the ontological paradox that the object in the photograph is absent in the present time of being 

looked at.

We are thrown into the world, but conversely, we can also throw the world away.

The world of nature, free from anthropocentric thinking, is a world without frames.

Frames are paired with the frameless. Throughout human history, the most fundamental cultural frame is probably 

language. Humanity has judged and constructed the world with the structure and frame of symbols and language. 

Through the first frame, civilization and culture were initiated by mankind discovering or inventing the world. 

However, artists try to escape the most fundamental and authoritative frame.

They try to imagine, invent, and contact a world beyond one run by language. In the eyes of the artist, the existing 

world is not a complete reality, but a one that has been interpreted and edited and ultimately invented. Hence, it is 

merely an illusion.

2)

Images have long been understood as shadows of reality, or fake reality. However, as Nietzsche deconstructed god and 

idea, all of our awareness and consciousness started to become understood as interpre-tations, and a combination of 

metaphors, and imaginations. The image is restored and, as a place where truth is created, it is ontologically elevated 

to the same status as reality.

3

Stones and water, trees and forests, reflected images. It is difficult to find a clear order and balance in a world where 

the movements of objects and concepts are in-tertwined. The artist imagines a geometric frame in a world where 

chaos and cosmos coexist. Clear air, clear space and a simple but sharp frame make up a bizarre reality.

It is a bright shadow of another reality that is different from reality. The experience of infinite reality spans over the 

frame. Photography is a record, but at the same time interpretation and expression. Distinction between artistic and 

commercial photography depends on who the subject looking at the world is or where the subject is looking. However, 

it seems that at some point this distinction has come to matter less Today, it goes without saying that photography is 

art. We are also aware that photography faces a crisis in the digital age, like the way artists panicked at the advent of 

photography believing it would be the end of painting

Photography captures people and the world in it. It deals with the world observed through human eyes. Photography 

deals with images and desire. Desire is the desire of others and the taste of others. The shutter of the photograph is 

not pressed by the artist. It is pressed by a certain force caused by the desire of others. The artist is just a passage 

through which desires pass. However, this passage is not composed of mere material, but is itself a desire. The artist 

waits patiently for the right moment to capture the image. Although the form and atmosphere may differ depending on 

the times, regions, and the artist's tendency, it is not easy to find an objective in photography as contemporary art. A 

whole life has to be dedicated to getting that objective.

This is because the movement is different or irregular from the desire of capital. If you ask whether we grow 

spiritually and cultivate our mind through artistic activities most will answer yes. But what is considered clear 

evidence of it relies on conventional and preconceived notions.

Sometimes a special time, place, and light are deeply imprinted. Some see things that others cannot. He sees the deep 

layer of meaning, despite being under the shadow, behind the secret curtains of the world. To that person, the world 

is not sin-gular, and all the worlds come together. A thousand worlds are metaphorized as one world. It crosses myriads of layers. At the same time, one can try to reconstruct the grammar of symbols and metaphors that operate 

in the mind of the artist. However, moments in daily life fade away. There is a world where the past, present and 

future all fuse into one. Such a time zone cannot be captured by language and grammar. It can only be felt indirectly 

through the movement of images, the constantly vibrating images.

Chanoo Park's photography analyzes, interprets, and newly reconstructs and reveals the surrounding external world, 

but the frame initially presented disappears and is replaced with another frame. And this replacement of frames is 

repeated forev-er. Discussing frames refers to the movement of creating and erasing the frames.

Therefore, from a logical point of view, a frame is inherently virtual, and a series of virtual operations can be seen to 

connect the world and the individual and construct meanings. It calls for a complete return to oneself, free from the 

relationship of social reality. A restrained composition with abstract expression leads to meditation. It is as if one has 

finished one's secular life and exists in a different dimension of time. 3) In his photography, there is a coldness and 

rigor trying to escape from all the lust and desires. In a world in which all things are in motion, the artist's 

photography finely demonstrates the deep sense of meditation-based photography.

3)

The idea and image of passage of time from past to present, present to future is as old as human history. This strong 

system of beliefs began to disintegrate in the 20th century, and many artists were more fascinated by the idea that 

time is a fantasy. Time is not something that flows but moves in a very complex way, and above all, man cannot 

experience time as it is. Time is a form and abstract.

WORK 1. FRAME

Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world.

Creating a physical space.

One cell

One pyeong*

Creating my own absolute space.

*about 3.3 square meter 

WORK 2. PERFECTION 

During the Renaissance, Pope Benedict VIlI sent an envoy to commission the painting of St. Peter's Basilica, receiving portfolios from several paint-ers. However, Giotto only submitted a drawing of a circle. The envoy asked for other works, but Giotto said this would be enough, sending the envoy back, and the Pope entrusted Giotto with the painting of the cathedral after only seeing the drawing of a circle. This is where the story of Giotto's perfect circle came from, and many artists to come later such as Rembrandt made the attempt to draw the perfect circle.

.... 

Artist Kangso Lee's work is about removing the framework he learned at art college.

He is always concerned about the inside and the outside of the frame throughout all of his works.

WORK 3. CROP

Frame is the window through which the photographer perceives the world.

From the moment of shooting, photography work is about deciding where the subject begins and ends. In the past, 

when film cameras were used, only the most essential parts in the viewtinder were shot. Today, in the age of digital cameras, wider images are taken and re-cropped afterwards through programs such as photoshop. The frame of the 

sender is turned into the frame of the photographer, and into another color frame.

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