Jung Hee Choi

Ahata Anahata,
The manifest The unmanifest
As a wheel that is one-rimmed and threefold with one-hundred and one spokes and where the illusion of the one springs from the other two

drawings, video, sound installation
April 11 through 28, 2007

Opening Reception
Wednesday, April 11, 6-8 pm
Gallery Hours: Wednesday 5 - 8 pm, Saturday 2 - 5 pm

Tompkins Square Gallery
331 East 10th Street (between Avenues A and B)
Press Contact: Jay Sanders, 646-420-6682 jaylsanders@hotmail.com

A drawing, video and sound installation by Jung Hee Choi will open on Wednesday, April 11, 6-8 pm at Tompkins Square Gallery, 331 East 10 Street, New York City. The exhibition is on view through April 28, open Wednesdays, 5-8 pm, Saturdays 2-5 pm and by appointment.

In this installation, Choi combines video projection as the illumination source with large scale graphite drawings on black paper and self-performed continuous sound compositions, creating an environment of deep introspection. The slowly moving image of the video elucidates the luminous and dark areas of the drawing, making "manifest and unmanifest" the details of the calligraphy, depending on the position of the viewer in relation to the light. The contrapuntal overlay of Choi’s sustained friction sounds pervades hauntingly throughout the darkened gallery, weaving a unity of space and form.

Choi’s 2003 video sound performance and installation work, RICE, was chosen as one of The Ten Best of 2003 by Artforum: "This video-sound work was presented in May at Dream House, the permanent installation of La Monte Young’s eternal music and Marian Zazeela’s magenta lights, and one of Dia founder Heiner Friedrich’s great legacies. A hypnotic projection of rotating mandalic forms radiated out from Zazeela’s magenta color field like silent fireworks, while the sound of Choi tracing a circle around the top of an overturned cooking pot with a rice paddle created a single repeating tone that resonated deep in the solar plexus."

In October--November 2005, RICE was performed and presented in the MELA Dream House as a part of the La Monte Young 70th birthday celebration. Choi received The Experimental Television Center’s Finishing Funds 2006 award, supported by the Electronic Media and Film Program at the New York State Council on the Arts to prepare RICE for DVD release.

The Jung Hee Choi exhibition is on view at Tompkins Square Gallery through April 28, open Wednesdays, 5-8 pm, Saturdays 2-5 pm. For appointments at other times during gallery hours contact Thea Nedelcheva, Hybrid Space Project, 646-549-2357, TheaNedelcheva@gmail.com.

Ahata Anahata,
The manifest The unmanifest
As a wheel that is one-rimmed and threefold with one-hundred and one spokes and where the illusion of the one springs from the other two

Jung Hee Choi

There is a Vedic concept known as "Samadhi" in Sanskrit and "Samae" in Korean. It is a state that can be achieved by narrowing the consciousness to focus on one object of concentration and by doing so becoming one with the object. It evokes celebratory aspects of life. If you are in the state of Samadhi through music, you are not trying to achieve anything more than the enjoyment of the music in the moment and you are entranced in the music. Celebration and ecstasy are very important elements in art-making. They bring out what is in you. They can bring out the divinity within you. It can be a first step toward a liminal state. For me, art making, including creating and performing art, is a way of reaching the state of divine ecstasy, Samadhi.

The drawings that I am presenting in this show represent another technique for leaping into the unconscious, the annihilation of self. The drawing is made of collections of distinct patterns with an unlimited number of variants. With a human element, each template in a pattern incrementally transforms the original pattern. However, the patterns are not totally accidental. The ocean of randomness yields islands of structure through the perceptive ability of the eye and the mind of the viewer to create an impression of the unity of the whole image as some macrostructural form.

This unique technique of drawing was developed in the ‘70s by my beloved teacher and mentor, the light artist and calligrapher, Marian Zazeela. Marian’s drawing, 7 II 73 - 2 II 74, was drawn with graphite on black paper. I was captivated by the beauty of the drawing and the special effects that were created by the luminous reflective graphite while the black paper absorbed the light. Since the graphite on black drawing can only be visible when illuminated with a light source and viewed from an angle specific to each individual, I realized that control of the light can add another dimension to the experience. Using video projection as a light source, the moving image delineates the luminous and dark parts of the drawing. It makes manifest and unmanifest the facets of the drawing depending on where the viewer is in relation to the light.

The two drawings that I am presenting in this exhibition that are in the style of this genre of Marian’s work are improvised with extreme detail. This technique especially requires complete concentration and discipline. It seemingly takes an opposite approach from the technique of automatic drawing practiced by the surrealists to free their subconscious and to record whatever thoughts and images presented themselves from the unconscious mind. However, freedom and discipline are not mutually exclusive concepts. In fact, they are in constant interplay in the creative process and they can be thought of not as paradox but as interdependent complements. These complements define each other as do positive and negative poles, such as the positive and negative pulses of a vibration. The opposites, discipline and freedom, structure and anti-structure, balance and imbalance, argument and reconciliation are creating an arc of energy. The traditional poles of thesis and antithesis create the energy arc through synthesis.

In the yoga of sound there is the concept of Ahata Nada, the struck (and therefore audible) sound or vibration, and Anahata Nada, the unstruck (and therefore inaudible) sound or vibration. This mode of thought can then be transferred to the opposites, visibility and invisibility.

Copyright © Jung Hee Choi 2007