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[Exhibition walkthrough (~ 1 minute)]

Lee Kun Yong: Oh, hello

Lee In Beom: Congratulations.

Lee Kun Yong: Oh, you came to the exhibition, I will introduce you some of my artworks. This is a body drawing 76-1. This is Shinchehang (Corporal Term), you know? I brought a tree here...

Lee In Beom: It was in 1971...

Lee Kun Yong: Right, in 1971. It was the world's first nature-parasitic art, I mean...look, you tree. What are you asking me about art? Look, I will hang on you. Look, a nature-parasitic artist, a nature-parasitic artwork! Shinchehang (Corporal Term)! In was around in 2005.

Lee In Beom: In 2005.

Lee Kun Yong: Here... I am not sure what was here. Ah, it was in 2007.

Lee In Beom: In 2007.

Lee Kun Yong: These pieces are also for my artworks, I am going to use those leftover pieces...

Lee In Beom: It's September 15th, 2014, Friday. I am here at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Gwacheon with artist Lee Kun Yong to talk about his art. At the moment, he is holding an exhibition titled 'in Snail's Gallop, Lee Kun Yong' as a part of Korean contemporary artists series exhibition opened by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea. I am working at Sangmyung University as a professor, and I am also a curator and an critic as well. Now, we are going to interview the artist Lee Kun Yong. Good morning sir. Nice to see you.

Lee Kung Yong: Oh, hello. Happy to see you.

Lee In Beom: I am very honored to interview you. Before we talk about your artworks in earnest, let's begin with talking about where and when you were born and how your childhood environment was and so on.

Lee Kun Yong: Um... I was born in Sariwon, Hwanghae province, North Korea. And when I was three, in 1945, I moved to the south. My mother's parents were in Seoul, and my father who was a minister had come to Seoul to study in a theological college a long time ago.

Lee In Beom: Did you have any special reason to study art in college?

Lee Kun Yong : I had a habit of looking at books and things carefully. I thought it was because I had bad eyesight but it was not. I was just thinking about them. Uh.... I graduated from Pai Chai high shcool. When I was a middle school student, I already realized from books that there were many ways to express things, and I confirmed that my thought was right that there were different ways to draw or paint depending on thought and style. I was right.

After entering the high school, there was a logic class when I was a second-grader. I could learn about western philosophy. Uh... the social atmosphere in my youth was as you know... People used to believe that we must liquidate the past to modernize society. So, we had the Saemaeul movement (the new village movement) and so on. I thought it was good to know about the social phenomena and western philosophy at the same time.

Lee In Beom: Could you please tell us about your experiences or educational environment when you were studying art in Hongik university where you began to study art in earnest.

Lee Kun Yong: Since I used to do unexpected things sometimes, my teachers thought I was different . But like other students, I practiced sketching plaster models in my freshman year and started to take oil painting and other basic classes in sophomore year. I could chose I what I wanted in my junior and senior year.

Lee In Beom: First of all, let's talk about your debut work in 1971, Shinchehang (Corporal Term). It was your debut work but it has been in many exhibitions including this one. I guess it means a lot to your art career. I would appreciate if you tell us the details about how you created it.

Lee Kun Yong: I was very interested in phenomenology and analytical philosophy of language since high school. I was a nerd. Especially, I thought Wittgenstein's language philosophy I mean, analytical philosophy was amazing. Uh... so my artwork was named as Shinchehang.

And the name was...we organized an artist group called ST for studying and many other activities. We studied Lee Yoo Han's paper called Introductory Study of Phenomenology of Meeting through Lee Il's translation. At that time, there were no photocopiers, there were Xerox and Hurex but those were a lot later, so, at that time, we had to use mimeography called Garibang.

So we made copies of Lee Yoo Han's paper and used it to discuss. And there words like Corporal Term and Relatum in the stories of Maurice Merleau Ponty's theory. There were some parts that I agreed with, so I brought a big tree even with its root zone to the exhibition hall and named it as a Shinchehang (Corporal Term). I already had the idea but it was hard to find a tree to make it. One day, I found an uprooted tree at a Gyeonbu expressway construction site and took it from there to use.

I thought if an art work was moved from the nature to a exhibition hall, rather than created by an artist, if a part of the nature with its natural shape was put in a cultural space by an artist's idea, it would give a shock to visitors.

Lee In Beom: It was what you exhibited at the Korean Fine Arts Association exhibition in 1970, right?

Lee Kun Yong: That's right.

Lee In Beom: Was it also at the Paris Young Artists Art Festival in 1973?

Lee Kun Young: In 1973.

Lee In Beom: It is also recorded as a work that was also exhibited in 1973?

Lee Kun Yong: Yes.

Lee In Beom: The one exhibited in 70's and the other one shown in Paris must be the same in terms of concept and contents, but I think it's several unique aspects must have had great impact in the Paris Biennale...

Lee Kun Yong: In fact, in those days, It was almost impossible that a Korean artist going to Paris to exhibit an artwork of a huge tree with roots even at the Modern Art Museum of the City of Paris. However, I didn't think it was impossible. As a result, the general art director who was in charge of the whole Biennale, Georges Boudaille, asked the government and got one donated from the Paris National Park, so I could exhibit it.

But, comparing to Korean trees that grow a bit curved through four seasons, those in Paris grow straight. I thought it might have been better, if it had grown curved, but it looked something new anyway.

Lee In Beom: In 1971, you also released the work called Perceptual Defense with the Shinchehang (Corporal Term)? and it was followed by the Relatum. Could you please tell us how the Shinchehang (Corporal Term) and the Relatum are different, and what your consistent idea about them is?

Lee Kun Young: Perceptual defense is... If you study phenomenology, you can see the term perception often. Um... As philosophers like Ponty and earlier thought, the issue about perception was an alternative. I mean philosophy is not just shaped by thoughts. It was controversial that what the thought in our lives and in this world is. It was about perception. Perception through face-to-face meeting rather then just as a norm. It was an important subject to find a way of thought through perception.

While studying philosophy, I thought there must be more than just perceiving an object in space. I thought there could be different perception of an object depending on directions and locations. So I started to sketch the work.

Lee In Beom: When I see your artworks like Shinchehang or Relatum created in early 1970's, I think you have fundamental questions about art or painting. Please tell us what you think about it.

Lee Kun Yong: I used to ask myself questions like "What is art". It started from middle school and continued through high school as well. The crucial reason that I couldn't stop thinking about it was because of my mother. My mother used to say to me "You should be a useful person. Be a doctor." Since my mother was a nurse, she thought a doctor was the most useful job. So, she suggested me to be a doctor all the time. Then, I was thinking 'what is a useful job?'

So I compared it to the job, artist, specifically painter. However, it had no function except recording something like a photographers do. Most of the people paint or draw for a hobby, for their enjoyment. So, when I compared the job to what my mother said was useful, there was a big gap between them. So, when I was a middle school second grader, I had the thesis that being an artist is doing useless things and pursuing them to the end.

Lee In Beom: You found enlightenment when you were young.

Lee Kun Yong: Yes, yes, I did. It was because my mother didn't stop asking me to be a doctor and to be a useful person, I was seriously thinking whether I was a useless person. And I started to learn logic and read many books. I was very natural. Because, my father had 10,000 books at that time. We were living in Hongrong outside of Cheongryangri, but we couldn't move to anywhere. In my whole life, my family, I mean with my father and mother, moved only twice, because of the books.

The last time we moved was when we moved to Mapo, next to Seogang university. The books were moved on three trucks, only books. And the other luggage were moved on one truck. I heard that my new neighbors thoughts that a judge's family were moving in. They might think people with great power had many books.

Anyway, it was a western style house, and the main two-stories-house was filled with books and my family lived in the rear house. We had that many books so, it was very natural to read books from middle school and high school, and I read many books in University as well. Since I spent a lot of time on reading, I became think a lot about what art is, what a life is, eventually.

Lee In Beom: So, like I asked you before, it was not a sudden thing, it started naturally from long time ago.

Lee Kun Yong: Right, it has accumulated.

Lee In Beom: I think that the Untitled series and Relatum series show our introspection about human beings' artificial attitude toward nature or our artificialness. And I think the Fabric series is read as a critical introspection about drawing and illusion. Please tell us what your thought on this is.

Lee Kun Yong: So, in general, I thought there must be a cross-over point between Western philosophy and Oriental thought, like the thought of Laotzu. I mean, I thought that an artist bringing materials from nature and showing them as art works with minimal change was very similar to Western philosophy that tends to gradually realise fact and the world itself. Apart from the idea that human beings subjectively interpret everything, those two were similar in terms of that they are developing philosophy through interaction with the objects and the person who thinks, and through perception.

So, if you approach my Untitled series from phenomenological aspects, you admire the natural form of all materials especially, tree and plants, and you concede people's ambition to approach somewhere as it is. The Untitled series is a combination of the two. Likewise, the Fabric series is also about what illusion is. What we see is from one side and it is deceiving our eyes, because after images of illusion constantly remain in our head. So, I think a picture is an illusion space where we cannot enter or put our hand in. Then, what is it?

So, I hung fabric on a wall and tied it with a string, then...I sprayed paints on it like a thick layer of dust, and untied the string and completely unfolded it. Then I drew a red straight line across the fabric. Look, if the fabric is crumpled like illusion, like we see, the line must be curved but it is strait. The edges of the fabric are also straight. I have tried to show what painting is. I have tried to show that painting is creating illusions through the pictorial elements.

Lee In Beom: At that time, in the beginning of 1970's after the end of 1960's, there must have been impact from Western minimalism, or Japanese monohwa and interaction with it right?

Lee Kun Yong: Sure, cultures are constantly influenced by others, and they are shaped through its influence. So we must talk about it as it is. In one way I was influenced by the Japanese monohwa and mulpa artists' theory and phenomena. And there was a [indecipherable] in Italy, but I had no way to get the information so, didn't even know about it. Later I found it there was a movement like that.

Lee In Beom: Have you met the artists like [indecipherable]

Lee Kun Yong: Ah... later I met them when there was a Japanese contemporary artists' exhibition in Korea. Especially, the artist Suga participated in the Paris biennale with me in 1973.

Lee In Beom: Like you just said before, I think you are a rare artist who has pursued artworks with the power of philosophical thought such as the phenomenological issues and Wittgenstein's analytic philosophy. However, I don't think analytic philosophy is well reflected in your early works, like Shinchehang and Relatum?

Lee Kun Yong: Actually, at that time our attitude of thinking is trying to share feelings. And especially, when an artist speaks a lot, people use to say 'hey, artists should speak through their artworks, what kind of artists speak so much!'. People didn't like it, but Lee Kun Young, himself used to make a fuss a lot. At that time, Wittgenstein was interested in language's therapeutic function, because the power of language is huge. So, he was studying language itself apart from objects.

He also applied the rhetoric of Tautology, a mathemetical formula, to painted or photographed space. When I considered paintings as a painting, a flat space, I used the techninque that Wittgenstein used, showing flat space plainly as flat space. That logic, a basic logic was shown through the fabric work, with no scenery, no people, no street in it, but illusion itself

Lee In Beom: Like Wittgenstein tried to clarify the phenomenological misunderstanding about language, you tried to clarify the illusion on paintings, and the power to face it as it is, is from Wittgenstein, right?

Lee Kun Yong: Wittgenstein said, on the last part of his early paper, to keep silent when you cannot assert your idea. I was shocked by that, because we had a notion of the communion of heart with heart, I mean, we can share feelings without saying anything, we can share ideas with just few words rather than a logical statement, but he was saying to keep silent where you cannot express ideas with logical sentences. I was shocked.

I think it could be applied to our political situation once. Politicians deceived people with words and do other things behind our backs. We used to have civic classes in middle school. Now it is called ethic class but anyway. In civic classes we learned that all powers and rights stem from the people. But the reality was not like that. I thought we should prove that by constantly talking about it, so I used to make leaflets which I handed out in Myungdong streets. I was a weirdo.

Lee In Beom:So, under the dictatorial government, the so called Yushin regime in 1972, you tried to visually interpret the verbal pollution through your art works. I see you worked on the linguistic issues while you were leading the ST group rather than in AG (Korean Avant-garde Association).

Lee Kung Yong: That was because, we were studying the text called Fine Art before Philosophy by Joseph Kosuth, I don't know how he would accept this but, in my opinion, his paper was just full of copy and paste of other philosophers text, and saying what he finally want to say through the sentences, but our ST members didn't know that.

So, I asked a professional language philosopher in college, and he was very surprised. He asked me why an artist would ask this question. I had a general idea about it because I used to participate in philosophical gatherings when I was in high school. So I had in my mind that at least the propositional idea and conceptual idea must be firm in use of language.

Lee In Beom: Um... I think your works across 1970's were generally focusing on what an art is, and the fundamental introspection of it, like Shinchehang and Relatum. However, after the event in Baek-rok gallery in 1975, your artworks started to take on other aspects. I guess, especially God's measurement and equal-sized space event, titled as the appearance of event, which was a part of logical event at the Today's method exhibition in Baek-rok gallery were the beginning. Please tell us about the work briefly.

Lee Kun Yong: Ah.... well, of course I was interested in the fundamental aspects of arts and took the existing artistic movements seriously. But, I abandoned them after learning about them. Wittgenstein said 'Throw away the ladder after climbing up by it.'

In other words, I tried to figure out about the main stream arts of the time, but on the other hand I focused on what I was interested in, what I was trying to find the answer. So, when I heard the Baek-rok gallery was opening, I started to think how to change people's idea about arts, and how to make them introspective about their thoughts on art.

So... it was like this.... This performance was what I did after the Baek-rok gallery exhibition. I asked the visitors 'What it is'. Then a philosopher said that it seemed to have a very profound meaning. So I asked him to explain what he thought. Then, he explained how he interpreted my motion as a metaphysical world with mentioning 'buddhology' and many other philosophies.

I said "I was impressed, but that's yours, you take it. Mine is actually not that complicated. See, if you crook your thumb, the others get closer. Look, if you crook the other four fingers, the thumbs get closer". I was trying to show that...I was showing that fingers can get closer and have distance between each other at the same time, and you can make the thumbs be apart as you open your hands, so I was trying to show you that they can get closer by crooking. That was all.

Then, he said that "it's too insipid." but, another person said "Wow it's so clear, I thought art was conceptually complicated and hard to understand but I am delighted to see the visual explanation in front on my eyes". So, what I showed in Baek-rok gallery was Same-sized space, existing same-sized space, and existing... measurement, and so on. Eventually, I measured the pentagonal gallery's walls and ironed out same sized Chinese drawing paper and filled the gallery walls with it.

Lee In Beom: As Wittgenstein said not to mention about what you can insist, it seems that you intended to show what you can show only.

Lee Kun Yong: Yes, you can say that. Eventually, delicate and difficult art that pursues metaphysical and an ideal world is just a trifle and it is just an imaginary world that we made. However, I think, in a world that becomes more complicated, that gets closer to each other, and experiences many things through wars, my way is better for those who have desire to meet a more fundamental world and looking for the world where they can communicate with more people.

Lee In Beom: I guess you have your own unique stance about performance art at that time. Especially, um... especially, you have developed your art-world with naming your performance as event or logical event. Please tell us what distinctions there are between your previous happening or performance art and the logical events.

Lee Kun Yong: Since I used the word 'logic', some people pounce on the term. I just used logic as a tool. I just made my own way to show things as they are through logic. I mean, uh...there was time when people thought about art, the more difficult the greater. However, art is an a priori word. So, apart from the notions of necessity, usage or informativeness, it is a way to realize the parts needed among people' intrinsic attributes.

So a priori art is not based on what we experienced. It is an area that we can for ever extend by finding new ways. So, um... I used the methods, I also lived through a harsh era under a dictatorial regime. When I moved from a dictatorial place to another which is not, I experienced that my consciousness controls my body. I mean, when I arrived the Orly airport, it was 11: 30pm, and I experienced that my arms and legs were paralyzed. I was surprised that my young body was suddenly immobilized.

Later I realized that it was because of my thought of curfew violation. In Korea, before 12:30 pm, we try to enter home before 12, but it was 11:30 when I arrived the Orly airport. I saw outside, it was dark. I didn't know where to go and couldn't go anywhere. So I tapped my body, massaged myself and relaxed. And what I realized was that there was no curfew. Um.... Likewise, I um... started body drawing technique since 1976. Issues about drawing were constantly being developed to the way of reduced development, but I was going the opposite way.

So, I asked art college students to make ancient sculptures and exhibited them in streets including near Namdaemoon. People have to consistently get up early and run for the bus. I experienced that my arms and legs were paralyzed because of my consciousness where curfew doesn't even exist. So, what I realized that time was that our consciousness controls not only our thoughts but also our bodies as well. A regime also controls our bodies as well.

Lee In Beom: At that time, your philosophical attitude or logical attitude was actually criticized among the ST group members for the reason that it denied the aesthetic or customary factors that art has, wasn't it?

Lee Kun Yong: Right, especially before they study analytic philosophy, they criticized my ideas by saying that they didn't understand what I was trying to do. Um... but, actually I was just focusing on my work and found that later that they had difficulties understanding my work.

So, as I just said before, my body drawing is not like drawing our consciousness, or paintings recording wars or history that constantly fills spaces, but it is a work of anthropology, showing how the actions of drawing line and painting meet the flat surface and works. So, in my body drawings, there are no objects. It shows how to our body becomes the expressor and under the terms of our body meets the object that is called a flat surface, how it paints and works realistically.

Lee In Beom: I think your artworks have something in common, in terms that most of them are showing conceptual and methodological aspects. However, not like other works, your drawing performance series have more varied features. I saw you showed a drawing performance at the fifth ST group exhibition in 1976. Please introduce us some specific examples and in what aspects you think your unique specialty was displayed on the works.

Lee Kun Yong: I titled them as 'The method of drawing' and 'Shinche drawing (Drawing performance)'. So, when it comes to showing the method of drawing, in the concept of pictures, it was focused on what was drawn, what was drawn well. However, if the audience can watch the method of drawing, if they see it seriously, they can find out that the actions of drawing lines or drawing things are like this and expressions start from these actions.

At the same time, it is a way of seeing the entire process of drawing and watching the essence of drawing. If we see it in a broad sense, Western phenomenology, Merleau Ponty's theory of body, or Wittgenstein's analytic and basic development of logic, is similar to Oriental thought that sees objects as they are. I thought there must a crossover-point between them in that they see objects as they are and try to exclude doubts about the actions of the objects. So, if you see my drawing performance with no doubts, you will feel that those are natural like in the stance of Las-tzu and Chuang-tzu.

If you see them from the point of a phenomenological aspect, you will see that the motion of walking or expressing is not organized but shown naturally through our body. As phenomenologists warned not to organize or distort objects but describe them as they are, the results are supposed to be the same regardless who does it, if they follow my way.

Because the the structure of the lines and our arms are the same. The reason why I draw from behind the canvas is there as well. Because it is not drawing an object on a canvas before my eyes. Since I draw the object by stretching out my arms from the back of the canvas, it is natural to set the size of the canvas the same as my height, 170cm.

It is not natural, if I use a canvas bigger than me, and draw onto a ladder or use tools. Because these are expedients used to satisfy our desire to make something possible that we cannot do by ourselves. However, my drawing performance as the heart-shape one is behind of us now, it is made of natural lines that are supposed to be drawn when we swing our arms.

Lee In Beom: It is not drawn as facing them, and it it not an emblem of a concept, but made of the logic of lines and body...

Lee Kun Yong: Journalists said about my work that "He has doubts of drawing objects that are before his eyes. He does not draw an object in front of it, but draws without looking at it, from behind of it, or put the canvas behind himself, otherwise he draws an object from next to it or while cutting it out." What they said is also correct.

Lee In Beom: Could you please tell us how your artworks in the end of 1970's are related to the white monochrome which was the focus of Korean art at that time. I guess there must be something in common and different at the same time. Please tell us what you think about it.

Lee Kun Yong: I think there are many things in common. For example, if we see Jeong Sang Hwa's artworks, he paints first and take some parts off where he can, and fills the parts with other colors again, and in some parts, he paints unconsciously and shows the trace of of the constant actions.

There are also artists who are in favor of monochrome and use minimum number of colors as they can. So, in general, um... they have common aspects with mine in terms of that they try to show natural actions intrinsically by staying away from the post-Renaissance movement that constantly tried to describe objects.

However, in a more intrinsic aspect, I think the one that shows the motions of drawing is my drawing performance. I mean, I don't swing arms to draw lines unconsciously. I pursue my ways to acknowledge our body structure and the fact that we can draw only like that with our body structure. It shows that the inevitable motions of drawing like that. It is not a gesture or anything to express something.

And there is an issue of colors as well. The world is full of colors from flowers, clothes, and everything. It is natural. So, I think limiting colors like monochrome is unnatural. I used to use one color to express a concept, but I use colors where needed. However, there is an ultimate aim that Korean art tries to express with monochrome. That is, I think that it started to limit colors to those that exist in Koreans' rooted sentiment. I think it is started with a passion to express Koreans' sentiment and cultural dignity at the beginning.

One of the reasons why Park Seo Bo talks about 'leaving nature as it is' a lot is, because he wants to talk about the attitude of 'leaving nature as it is' that Koreans have, it is not aimed to express Koreans' cultural dignity or cultural factors through actions about 'leaving nature as it is'. That is what we secure from the beginning.

Lee In Beom: So, you are doubting that the white monochrome is somehow swayed by the argument of ethnic identity that used to be called Korean modernism or Korean democracy in the late 1970's.

Lee Kun Yong: That is right. Um...as independance or identity of the nation was controversial in the North, it was very controversial at that time and there was a movement to replace the flow from overseas by it, and what Koreans have, were shown throughout the movement. In that sense, I tried to exhibit my works in bigger square, or space, more resistantly and more freely.

Lee In Beom: Especially, the work called 'Come here, can you see me' shown at the Asian held in May, 1975, or body drawing No.6 'I will draw a straight line' in 1976 are referential about the reality. Do you have any personal experience or episode refer to the social status of the time?

Lee Kun Yong: Well, it seems that more people talk about it recently. I was uncomfortable with the regime and the reality of the time and hated the censorship installed by the government. I hated what they asked me to do through official notes, and I hated a couple agents who monitored my daily life in turns.

I also hated that they even came the the place where I met the audience with the aim of communicating with people through artistic group activities. So, through the action of drawing performance done by bending my upper part of body on my shoulder as the axis and draw lines by swinging my arms, I tried to express the geometric language called a straight line, and the artificial line called a straight line. I did the performance while clamoring out what I have consistently resisted throughout my life and in reality through the two languages.

The phrase 'I will draw a straight line' was from that... It is easy to draw a straight line in the middle of paper, but if you try to draw a straight line starting from the middle towards each side, it is not possible. It is because your arm moves from the axis of your shoulder, it makes a circular movement. Since it make a circular movement, an artificial language is used. 'I will draw a straight line! I will draw a straight line!' I shout and scream. While I was doing it over and over, a group of young people came close and they started to yell with me 'I will draw a straight line!'.

One of them followed me everywhere, so I remember him. One day, he came to me and tapped on my shoulder saying that "Today's performance was awkward", so I said "What was awkward? Why is trying to a straight line awkward?". He said " Then, why do you scream?"

I said "To make someone hear it well". "Who?" I said "That is, there is someone who should hear." He asked me back "And why did the young people scream with you?". I stopped the conversation by saying that "They might have some reasons." Anyway, I used to go the park near Hongik university and constantly did performances involving young people and ran away.

Lee In Beom: I heard that you were tortured...

Lee Kun Yong: Yes, in the spring of 76, three people in a black car came to me. They worked three people as a group. One drove and another got on the car in the back seat first, and they made me to sit in the middle of the back seat, then, the other one got on the car after me. The middle of back seat was not made for a person to sit. Then they brought me to the basement in a house near the Lira elementary school and made me kneel down, and trampled on me with their shoes on. I suffered from pain for 10 years.

Lee In Beom: You were tortured because of your logic of body and logic of line...

Lee Kun Yong: At that time, bullies in my neighborhood couldn't touch me. I used to walk splay-footed and one day they accosted me, asking why I walked like that. So, I told them that because I got martial arts training for a long time, my gait changed like this. So, they asked my what level I was in, and I said "You don't have to know that." And they said "Please walk normally when you walk around the neighbor hood." I lied to them I started to walk like that because of martial arts training. I had walk that way becasue of the torture.

Because my legs became bandy. Later, someone asked me to exchange one of my artwork with his 150-year-old wild ginseng. So I took it after a painful 10 years, and it healed up in one night. I was living in a 4 stories low-income apartment and it used to take a long time to to down from the fourth floor for me, because of the pain.

But, next morning after taking the wild ginseng, I could go down to the first floor quickly. Then, I thought 'what about going up?' and I could do it quickly as well. So I opened the door of my house and told my wife who was washing dishes that I went down to the all the way to the first floor and came up to the fourth floor very fast. Then, my wife just said okay, because I used to tell jokes all the time. So, I said "It's true! I am not lying."

Lee In Beom: It seemed that your interest in art in 1970's was ended up with the works called 'Continuos life' and 'in Snail's Gallop'. 'in Snail's Gallop' has many episodes and it looks like your representative work as much as it was used as a title for this exhibition in National Museum of Comtemporary Art. Please tell us more about 'in Snail's Gallop'.

Lee Kun Yong: Ah... I am so touched as much as my heart beats faster, every time I hear the word 'snail'. Ah... a snail's slow movement is a speed of a life. And it is a movement of life. I am touched when I see a snail who is not affected by education, systems or power, and keep moving without disappointment at something or caring of someone who has a better life. So, I am disappointed at things a lot, and at that time I was 49kg, because I was underfed.

When I was so thin and always sensitive about reality, what made me hang in there was a snail's endless steps, the flexible steps. Since I am Christian, I used to think that Jesus even overcame the pain of crucifixion. Compare to his pain, mine was nothing. It was an action of doing something and removing it at the same time. It is an action of dual-aspect. At the same time, it is not a human's functional action like using motors or equipment, but using my own body to express the speed of a life and a movement of a life in a limited human scale.

It is an action of standing, no, sitting in my bare feet without shoes, and continuously drawing lines from 0 to 1 in front of me over and over on the floor with a chalk. And move my feet little by little like a snail's motion. As a result, I can move 20 meters with no problem, even though I am over 70, I am 73.

It is not a matter of physical strength. Since I am not interested in finishing this from the beginning, I can flexibly move my feet and go forward. However, people who have good physique often give up within 3 to 5 meters, because they start it with the thought that they have to move fast, they get mentally exhausted early and fell down.

And they say it is weird and ask why it is so difficult. It is a performance of a digital motion drawing lines between 0 and 1 over and over and an analogue motion committed under unsuspected physical conditions combined in a place through a chalk. And that is a 20 minutes' action which is phenomenological, analytic and trying to show a life living in nature as it is, and it is shown as a part of drawing performance that makes us to feel the weight of the long time accumulated and reconfirm that those are alive.

Lee In Beom: So, you showed the performance in the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1979 for the first time...

Lee Kun Yong: Yes, I did.

Lee In Beom: So, it was a trial?

Lee Kun Yong: It had already been done in my individual exhibition in Daejeon.

Lee In Beom: Ah, it was done in Dajeon for the first time.

Lee Kun Yong: Yes, it was.

Lee In Beom: Then, what year was it?

Lee Kun Yong: It was done in 79 as well, and I did it in a ST group exhibition in Seoul, too. And I did it at the San Paulo Biennale in Summer as an opening performance. I can't even count how many times I have done it. I also did it at the Silkbergbarden gallery in Denmark and in Tokyo Japan as well. In 2012, I was going to to it at Times Square, but I had to give it up because my wife was sick. But, I still have a hope. I believe I can do it at the Square which is in the middle of a big city. I would love to give the feelings of a slow speed to modern people.

Lee In Beom: I can feel that you like the work 'in a Snail's Gallop' the most amongst your works by just looking at your words and face.

Lee Kun Yong: Yes, that is true.

Lee In Beom: Please tell us one of the episodes in Sao Paulo Biennale.

Lee Kun Yong: At Sao Paulo Biennale, I did the performance on the second floor which was like a Korean Pavilion. Park Hyung ki and my friend Kim Yong Min were also there and Mr. Nokwon who was in the commission went there with me, too. So, in the Korean Pavilion, I showed the performance there for the opening. At the press opening, I did the performance on the 660 square metre sized space where a long table was placed diagonally. I did the 'in a Snail's Gallop' performance from one end of the diagonal line to the other side of it.

Lee In Beom: It was a long distance.

Lee Kun Yong: Yes it was, but I couldn't attract people at the beginning. Since a thin person was moving little by little on his bare feet, when I passed the middle of the line under the table, people started to pop flashlights and asked me for interviews. I did not have any materials about it but I went there because my wife let me to go with the money we got from the sale of our apartment, anyway it was reported in the press and on television etc..

Lee In Beom: It must be a such a precious time to hear about each of your artworks through your own voice. But we can't even think about it due to the time limit. But I guess the images of your works will be provided.

Lee Kun Yong: Okay. and since I happened to participate in the Bob [Jansen]'s good project, I would like to say one theory about my general art that it is a parasitic art. It is called parasitic or parasitism in English. I think the more art or study is parasitic, the bigger they grow up.

That's my theory. I have been parasitic on the nature and my works including drawing performances and other monumental works like Shichehang are also parasitic on the nature. Lastly, I would like to finish this interview with showing me hanging on a root of my work to show that I am parasitic on the nature as well as how much I am nature-friendly person.

Lee In Beom: One of your works exhibited this time is 'an art parasitic on water, art also dies', right?

Lee Kun Yong: It's 'art is also short', and the gum I have chewed for 4 years is exhibited here as well

Lee In Beom: After the 1970's, your works in 80's changed variously, and after the middle of 80's, you did lots of new experimental works under the aspect of the post modernism. I feel sorry that we could only look over your art in 1970's only. I believe we will have a better chance to talk more. Thank you so much.

Lee Kun Yong: Thank you.

Credits

Interviewer: Prof. Lee Ihnbum

Director of photography, audio and lighting: Francois Saikally

Video editor: Francois Saikally

Transcription & Translation: Stacey Kim

Director: Dr. Bob Jansen

Technical & assembly: Dr. Bob Jansen