Art Critics Lee Kyungmo, Yoon Jinseop, Kim Seongho,
and Kim Bokyoung Participate
Professor Lim Hyeong-jun of the Department of Art Education at Gyeongnam National University graced the cover of the winter 2024 issue (No. 155) of the quarterly magazine Misulpyeongdan, published by the Korean Art Critics Association.
Professor Lim Hyung-jun of Gyeongnam National University and the cover of the Winter issue of Art Criticism.
The association was established in 1965 with the aim of advancing domestic art and academically and theoretically establishing art criticism, and it has over 70 art critics as members. For the winter issue cover artist, Professor Lim Hyeong-jun, critics Lee Kyung-mo, Yoon Jin-seop, Kim Seong-ho, and Kim Bok-young participated in the critique.
First, Lee Kyung-mo, the editor-in-chief of Misulpyeongdan and an art critic, opened the critique with “Condensed Speculative Images, Abstract Doppelgangers,” stating, “Lim Hyeong-jun’s sculptures are extremely speculative.” In the early 1980s, Lim’s installation work at the ‘Winter Daeseongri Exhibition,’ where he rhythmically stretched out over 20 discarded tires, was described as “an expansion of the art domain challenging the closed nature of modernism,” and was also regarded as an important indicator forecasting the direction of his future work.
Next, the ‘Phonograph’ series, which won awards at the 1987 Seoul Sculpture Competition and the Central Art Exhibition, was described as “a critical perspective of a young sculptor who sought to challenge the harsh society of the time,” and “Lim Hyeong-jun’s approach, mixing realistic depictions of life and sculptural experiments yearning for life, creates gentle ripples in the hearts of viewers, like throwing stones into a spring.”
Furthermore, analyzing Professor Lim’s artistic world through themes such as ‘From Abstraction to Life’ and ‘Speculative Reality,’ which distinguish his work from modernist sculpture, the critique concluded that “Lim Hyeong-jun’s art functions as a kind of ‘cabinet of curiosities,’ possessing a deconstructive character that summons time and fossilizes perception.”
Yoon Jin-seop, Vice President of the International Association of Art Critics, focused on Lim Hyeong-jun’s series Sound-bruit under the theme “Constructing a Formative World through Simplification and Fragmentation of Objects.”
He explained the changes over time, from Lim’s early 1990s focus on visualizing sound using the ‘exquisite corpse’ technique favored by surrealist artists like Salvador Dal? and Yves Tanguy, to his late 1990s exploration of the fundamental formal beauty of objects beyond the unknown of sound, and finally to his recent works that synthesize his sculptural world while seeking new outlets.
Art critic Kim Seong-ho, under the theme “Visible Sound, Searching for Its Archetypal Reality,” closely examined Lim’s Sound-bruit series, stating, “Lim Hyeong-jun’s sculptural language, which explores various aspects of sound and its archetypal reality (the noise the artist refers to) and existence, is highly surrealistic,” and “for Lim, the invisible sound is transformed into a visible image through sculpture.”
Professor Kim Bok-young of Hongik University, in “Primal Encounters and Messages of Salvation,” commented, “To understand Lim Hyeong-jun’s artistic world, it is necessary to examine the three filtered periods of his growth and pay attention to the methodologies and techniques he developed to resolve sculptural challenges.”
Professor Lim Hyeong-jun, who has sculpted “sound seen by the mind, not heard by the ear,” has presented numerous works over the past 40 years that organically combine the body and musical instruments. He is especially well known as the “Trumpet Artist” for his many sculptures featuring trumpets.
A graduate of the Department of Art Education at the College of Education, Gyeongnam National University, he earned his master’s degree from the Department of Plastic Arts at Paris 8 University in France and later obtained his doctorate from Pusan National University. He has received numerous awards, including the Grand Prize in Sculpture at the 1987 Central Art Exhibition (Hoam Gallery), the 4th Misulsegye Artist Award, the East-West Art Award, and the 19th Moonshin Art Award in 2020.
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