Young-gle Keem is a Korean artist who came to ´ace through the exchange agreement signed with ARKO—Arts Council Korea. Young-gle makes videos with material from various sources, from her own records that she takes with cameras of different qualities to found-footage from the internet or archives. Her pieces, which involve a great deal of research and translation, could be placed between the genres of video-art and fake-documentary. She has also worked on a variety of documentary projects and graphic design.

ARTIST STATEMENT

As I have majored both in literature and visual art, my work unfolded on the intersection of a double interest: one is a research on the literary text as a visual subject, and the other is about a question on how to read the historical and cultural images as contemporary narratives and how to respond to them.

My central concern has always been the accumulation rather than a brief moment in time. For example, when I became interested in a ballpoint pen, my perspective passed through the material aspect of the pen and went on to permeate into the layers of “chatters” that revolve around the pen. This is an attempt to delve into the objects and phenomena at a slower pace as well as my will to examine, uncover anew, and rigorously restructure the language and images of our time.

Thus, it is important for me to draw in language into visual arts in an active manner. The basic methodology consists of bringing together literary imagination from the narratives and a collection of visual images selected among the modern and contemporary history as well as popular culture, and reflectively restructuring the aspects of the world. I believe this means to be a way of “artistic reading” and have continued on my work in various forms of publication, video, photography, and installation with a variety of text.