Hyungkoo Lee (b. 1969) has been producing a diverse body of work on the theme of the ‘body’ for the past 20 years. The artist has been experimenting with the transformation, distortion, and expansion of the body by mobilizing scientific fields such as anatomy along with his artistic imagination. His work may look like a scientist's experiment, but it is an artistic experiment that mobilizes the artist's imagination and curiosity, which is why he often describes himself as a 'pseudo-scientist'.

Lee's preoccupation with the body as a subject can be traced back to his early series The Objectuals. While studying abroad in the United States, Lee experienced the differences between Western and Asian bodies, which led him to create devices that can be worn on the head, hands, and other parts of the body to transform the human body into any desired size or shape.

In Altering Facial Features with H-WR (2007), the artist wears a helmet with optical film and lenses that abnormally enlarge certain parts of the face, such as the eyes and mouth. These alterations are made according to Westernized beauty standards and the criteria for a good physiognomic face, resulting in an outcome that is unnaturally bizarre. The artist accentuated the artificial image by adding a painted black hairline and inserting aluminum foil into the teeth.

One day, the image of a face with abnormally large eyes from ‘The Objectuals’ series reminded him of a cartoon character, and he began to imagine what kind of skeletal structure such a creature would have, which led him to start the ‘ANIMATUS’ series.
 
While his previous work was an experiment in body modification, the ‘ANIMATUS’ series is a study of anatomy to reshape the skeletons of fictional cartoon characters and express their dynamic and playful gestures. Since cartoon characters are fictional creatures rather than real animals, the artist's imagination was naturally involved in the realization of their skeletons. For example, instead of using facial muscles, which animals don't have, the artist used the bones themselves to create playful facial expressions.

By giving Tom, Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck, Road Runner, and Coyote an anatomically based body, he creates the illusion that these fictional characters, which only exist in cartoons, are real as if they were living beings in their own right.

Lee's ‘Eye Trace’ series was born out of his ongoing interest in the animal body and his curiosity about how the world is viewed by the many creatures on Earth. As an answer to his curiosity, he decided to become an animal himself and see the world through their eyes in the ‘Eye Trace’ series.
 
In the case of Fish Eye Gear (2010), which was created to experience the perspective of a fish, the artist made a suit with a closed front and lenses on the sides that resembled a fish's eye structure, and walked around the space wearing it. Moving according to the fish's vision, the artist soon realized that he was walking in a zigzag like a fish, meaning that his gaze influenced his movement and resulted in a characteristic motion.

Following the ‘Eye Trace’ series, Lee introduced the series ‘MEASURE’ (2014), which studies the movement of horses according to their vision. In the beginning of the series, Lee used a wide-angle viewfinder to realize the visual structure of a horse that cannot see straight ahead as in the ‘Eye Trace’ series, but in his later works, Lee focuses more on movement than on the horse's vision.

Inspired by the graceful movements of horses in dressage competitions, the artist studied the posterior body structure of horses and mounted a device with a similar structure on his own body to recreate their movements. The artist attached a horse's tail to the device to make it look like a real horse was running, and the horse's movements were learned and reproduced as they are in real dressage, not randomly. Furthermore, the artist developed the process of transcribing the rhyme of the hoofbeats recorded in the video into a musical score.

Having explored and reinterpreted the body's external organs, the artist turns his attention to the more microscopic realm of the body's interior in the ‘X’ series. In X variation (2021), the interior of the body straddles the boundary between figuration and abstraction, creating a bizarre landscape that appears to be a microcosm.
 
The work was born out of the artist's concern about how to represent the modern human body.  In response, the artist aims to represent the 'impure human body' of modern individuals who live with foreign substances, such as metal rods inserted into bones or dental implants embedded in gums, using a variety of materials.

The resulting X variation is a harmonious collision of polyurethane foam that resembles flesh, paper mache that reveals the texture of bone, cold and sharp metal, and circular materials that float in space, creating a unique human landscape.
 
These experiments with the body stem from the artist's curiosity to perceive and understand the world in a different way. His interest in the human body, from his own to the bodies of other species and fictional creatures on Earth, stems from his desire to understand and know more about himself, others, and the world.

“What does the world look like through the eyes of crawling insects? What does the world look like through the double eyes of a flying dragonfly? Is what I see the right form? Maybe it's not when you look at it closely.
 
I have to keep doubting and reflecting in my own eyes, on what I think I know. If gaze is a problem, it's important to look at it from the other person's point of view. After all, isn't it just a matter of fighting because of different points of view? From the other person's point of view, it's nothing.” (Top Class, Interview with Hyungkoo Lee)

Hyungkoo Lee received a bachelor’s degree in sculpture from Hongik University and a master’s degree in sculpture from Yale University. He has held solo exhibitions at Busan Museum of Art (2022, Busan); P21 (2019, Seoul); Perigee Gallery (2015, Seoul); the Polytechnic Museum (2015, Moscow); DOOSAN Gallery (2010, Seoul); the Natural History Museum Basel (2008, Basel); and Arario Gallery (2008, New York). And, he had the first solo exhibition in the Korean Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007).
 
He has participated in numerous group shows including those held at the Jeonbuk Museum of Art (2020, Wanju); the Aram Nuri Arts Center (2019, Goyang); the Holden Gallery (2018, Manchester); the Donuimun Museum Village (2018, Seoul); the Buk-Seoul Museum of Art (2018, Seoul); the Daejeon Museum of Art (2018, Daejeon); the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (2017, Seoul); Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium (2016, Vestfossen); Daegu Art Museum (2015, Daegu); Choi & Lager Gallery (2015, Cologne); and PLATEAU, Samsung Museum of Art (2014, Seoul).

References

• 부산시립미술관, 한국현대미술작가조명 IV – 이형구 (Busan Museum of Art, HIGHLIGHTING KOREAN CONTEMPORARY ARTIST IV - HYUNGKOO LEE)-
• heypop, 우리의 ‘몸’을 바라보는 태도 <한국현대미술작가조명 IV - 이형구> 展
• 아라리오갤러리, 이형구: ANIMATUS (ARARIO Gallery, LEE Hyungkoo: ANIMATUS)
• 톱클래스, [이진숙이 만난 우리 시대 미술가] 이형구, 2012년 11월호