Lim Soo Sik
“In all ages and countries, books have been an object of longing and desire; thus there are not few people who skip a meal in order to buy books while pleasure in building intellectual nourishment looking books of being collected more and more in bookcase.”
Chaekgado(冊架圖)* is to represent desire of Lim Soo Sik toward books.
A photo artist, Lim Soo Sik read the modern culture through books.
His last exhibition also began from the interest on books. The photograph of representing a book, ‘Nonpossession’ of BeobJeong Buddhist priest, is still remained in my mind. Lim Soo Sik said, “Meeting with a bookcase of being full with books make me get a lump in my throat. Colorful books are well ordered by his way, which causes strong desire for possessing them.”
Chaekgado(冊架圖) is another portrait in its owner.
The work of Lim Soo Sik reconstructs the Chaekgado(冊架圖), which is one of folk paintings in pictures of Choseon period(1392-1910), as photograph.
His work for the Chaekgado(冊架圖) begin with photographing bookcases of various people. Bookcases look like same. However, books in bookcases are tremendously different depending on tastes and jobs of owners. Moreover, in a bookcase, books, writing materials and ornaments which are put by taste of owner imply various story and flexibility, which provides excellent visual elements.
For the artist, the most attractive part of the Chaekgado(冊架圖) is a peculiar perspective. In fact, the image of traditional painting of bookcase is hard to be represented as the image of photo sight. Therefore, artist deconstructs and reconstructs the image. If he wants to treat only perspective, he could solve the problem of perspective by taking pictures partly and using digital technologies. However, he chooses to sew pieces of photos and represents the Chaekgado(冊架圖) as patchwork. Like patchwork which is made by sewing pieces, like bookcase which is filled with each book, the work of Lim Soo Sik is individually valued as only one in the world which includes absolute time.