A resource site for visual art teachers and secondary students completing their HSC in the Visual Arts
Choi Jeong Hwa, born 1961 in Seoul, Korea, lives and works in Seoul, Korea.
Choi Jeong Hwa’s artworks explore everyday, mass produced plastic materials as a celebration of abundance, using these often kitsch materials as a reflection of our consumerism and throw away cultural attitudes to these objects. Considered a leading member in Korean Pop art, Choi Jeong Hwa uses these objects repeatedly within large installation spaces, filled with bright colours that promote a sense of magical wonder.
The artist’s intent is not so much as to send an environmental message, but rather to explore our consumption of these everyday objects and materials, as well pushing the boundaries of what art is and what it can be. Choi Jeong Hwa is interested in ways of celebrating the superficial object as an art form itself, within our increasingly urban societies and fading natural and organic environments.
Choi Jeong Hwa’s installations invite the audience to experience these objects and materials in a new way. Viewers can touch, walk through and around the installations, creating movement through mobile, hanging pieces. Choi Jeong Hwa challenges the status and reverence of artworks in galleries and museums by creating artworks from non traditional materials as installations, away from these formal institutions, that can be touched and experienced by an audience.
“Your shopping is my art,”
– Choi Jeong Hwa
“Plastic doesn’t decompose. Even when it’s old it looks like new, and it’s recyclable.”
– Choi Jeong Hwa
“First of all, plastic does not rot. I contemplate the differences between a real flower and a plastic flower a lot. The real flower can be ripped and will deteriorate in a short time, but the plastic flower is immortal. And the interesting thing is that there is such thing as a fake flower that looks real and a fake flower that looks fake. I played around with these concepts of plastic, real, and fake; and that’s how the plastic series started. Another thing is that I like collecting old plastic. When I look at my collection, I tend to get a lot of ideas.”
– Choi Jeong Hwa
THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK:
ARTIST
ARTWORK
AUDIENCE
WORLD
Choi Jeong Hwa
Hubble Bubble 2010
Commercial plastic containers
Installation view of the 17th Biennale of Sydney at Sydney Opera House
THE FRAMES:
SUBJECTIVE
STRUCTURAL
CULTURAL
POSTMODERN
PRACTICE:
Choi Jeong Hwa
Happy Happy 2009
Commercial plastic containers
Installation view at Los Angeles County Museum of Art
RELEVENT LINKS:
http://www.bos17.com/page/choi_jeong_hwa_artist_interview.html
http://www.bos17.com/biennale/artist/19
http://thecreatorsproject.com/creators/choi-jeong-hwa
http://www.xymara.com/inmyx/index/inmyx408/fav-200804-index/fav-200804-choijeonghwa.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/arts/stories/s2912250.htm