It was an exhibition @ the korean cultural center uk in London that addressed the theme of digital documentation of painting. I was asked to do a digital work based on a famous painting by Lee Ufan. But I really couldn’t see myself filming a painting… I have too much respect for this art. I think that the media of digital film is far too poor to reproduce the nuances and impressions of a painting. Everything would have been lost in the digital translation… And besides, why try to reproduce? I think that film can show others things… and I wanted to use this media for its intrinsic value, not just as a reproduction tool. it’s strength resides precisely in what it doesn’t show. So, more humbly, I decided to film people looking at this same painting, and let them describe it, with their words and their impressions. So, as a spectator, we are invited to guess this painting, rather than seeing it. I think it was the best “comment” I could make towards this painting, by simply letting people talk about it. Also, this underlines the suggestive power of the medium of film, rather than its practical use, its dependence on “realism”, so common. He can also reveals to us what we cannot see. But by describing these paintings, retrospectively and introspectively, these people also reveal themselves… the painting becomes their mirrors. So it’s also, somewhere, a series of video portraits reveals by Lee Ufan 🙂
