The Objects of Lesbian Artists in Korea

The Objects of Lesbian Artists in Korea
(2022)

/ Jeong Lee (Artist)

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Thin lines of objects do not occupy a massive area, however, they deeply induce the perspective of beholders. In her artist interview, Euysun Kim said that she intended to make an object that sensitively reacts with its external environment. However, sensitivity does not necessarily associate a weakness of the object. Euysun argues that natural objects are the most sensitive and the most durable things which can be touched by her. There are gravity, friction, and air resistance among the branches that seem fragile. <Tangles> is an entanglement of roots, fibers, leaves, and seeds that were captured by the artist’s recognition. According to her interview, she did not use any glue or tape to connect each object. “Boundary of a leaf is rougher than our expectation, and seeds have hooks to be hitched somewhere. Roots and Stems have fine soft hair. Such parts can be entangled only with the texture of their surface or electrostatic force. The enmeshed objects are strongly attached just as the dirt on clothes cannot be easily removed. The volume and weight of blues or sticks were redundant for <Tangles>.”¹⁹

Without any adhesive, the organization of the objects does not restrictly bind the materials. Euysun questions, “How can I see the object as well as I can?” that becomes a core of her artmaking process. Her question is focused on the attitude of the observer to sense something, rather than an act of looking. Such deliberation can be extended to a question of the relationship of her objects and their audience. By contemplating in exhibition spaces almost for a week, she delicately plans the position, distance, movements of audiences, to induce them to a non-hierarchical perspective on objects. Whenever Euysun treats her materials, she intends to preserve the independence of her materials and liberate them from their use. The exhibited objects that had been detached from their utility and context, attract perceptions from various angles. In some aspects, the uselessness of the objects reminds the imagination of Brenda Shaughnessy’s poetry project titled <The Impossible Lesbian Love Objects>, which was dedicated to a work of Meret Oppenheim. “I’m not just an object, my surfaces servicing, but I’m no more than myself. I end at my edges, finish my points, even if I bend your senses.” Shaughnessy said that “It made me think about women’s sexuality—what is women’s sexuality when it’s not a utility? And that was an exciting direction.”²⁰

In her essay titled <Queerly Made: Harmony Hammond’s Floorpieces>, Julia Bryan-Wilson quotes a word of Harmony Hammond to explain the notion of lesbian art. “I like to think of lesbian art as a braid with three strands, gender, sexuality, and art, though from time to time other stands, such as history or identity, are woven in and out.” According to her, The braid can be an excellent metaphor because the strands remain discrete, but the final braid is stronger than any one strand. In this context, Bryan-Wilson argues that <Floorpieces> of Harmony Hammond, the pieces of Hand-braided rag rugs, can be a third space of queerness. “Hammond’s Floorpieces literalize the metaphor of the rug as a secret place where dirt is gathered and hidden. The language of sweeping things “under the rug” activates a sense of domestic space and invisibility that is similar, perhaps, to the metaphor of the closet (also an enclosed, dark place where things are meant to be kept out of sight).”²¹

Regarding the concept of the third space of queerness, In my opinion, the gravitation among Euysun’s objects, with its tactility and sensitivity, can be analogized to a new dynamic of a lesbian genealogy. Loosened but strengthened enmeshment of the severed roots and stems creates atypical spaces in which invisible forces are making the non-linear connections. Rather than inheriting the metaphor of a closet, The work can become a new form of breathing space that has the more vibrant possibility which allows keen perceptions.

^{19 Louise the Women, Pipette for Louise: 03. Euysun Kim, online video recording, YouTube, 13
January 2021, <https://youtu.be/uOFofE9k_G4>
20 Brenda Shaughnessy, The Impossible Lesbian Obejct(s), Nov 5 2019, Museum of Modern Art
<https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/143>}

^{21 Julia Bryan-Wilson (2009) Queerly Made: Harmony Hammond's Floorpieces, The Journal of
Modern Craft, 2:1, 59-79,

DOI: 10.2752/174967809X416279}