Myoung Ho Lee: Photography-Act (Tree)

Tree #2, 2007 and Tree #3, 2007 (from “Tree”) © Myoung Ho Lee While browsing Lensculture, I came across the work of South Korean artist Myoung Ho Lee who produces photographs of trees that, indeed, “pose some unusual questions about representation, reality, art, environment and seeing.” the making of one of Myoung Ho Lee’s “Tree” photographs The process, the performative act, interests me almost as much as the images. Condensed from an essay by Sang Yong Shim (Art Critic, and Professor at Dongduk Women’s University) called Physical Isolation and its Visual Confirmation:

Myoung Ho Lee separates subjects from their original circumstances to derange the difference between subject and image. His work reveals nature by twists and turns, a little fabrication and optical illusion. Myoung Ho Lee enacts his works as ‘a series of discourse on deconstruction on the photography-act’. His works are largely composed by following four procedures: 1. Selection of The Subject 2. Separation of The Subject (meta-subject) 3. Photographing 4. Confirmation of The Separation First of all, look at the procedure (2), separating the subject from its environmental condition artificially. By setting a big white fabric vertically for playing a square surrounding role behind the chosen subject (with significant physical force), he makes the subject appear neutral from its original context. The object becomes 'separated object’, 'ambiguous subject’ and 'meta-subject’. The challenge of 'Photography-Act’ is deep. Because 'Photography-Act’ is not a real subject but a decontextualized and isolated variant from the subject, and is a real subject and nonsubject simultaneously. Procedure (4) confirms the creation of identical chaos to the 'Photography-Act’ itself by this separation and decontextualization.