Dongwook Lee
Wozu
Aug 1 - 31, 2024
Inner struggle
“Wozu” is a german word which means “what for”
As seen in Plato’s allegory of the cave, all of us are constantly caught between fictions and realities, battling on the thin line between pleasure and pain.
Wozu is a series that shows the states of inner collision among scared egos – individuals that want to look away from the truth and who, despite the clamor of voices around them, remain largely silent.
In an endless circle of life and death - born in and across the water to breathe his last breath - humans have been searching for the reasons for their existence and resisted the world and self-made limitations.
The water in this project represents the death of the physical body, and at the same time, of the soul driven to despair. The peaceful but violent attribute of water is very similar to that of a human being. I articulate the collision between egos through the mix of water and the human body.
In Norse mythology, humans are often depicted as fruits fallen off the trees. Likewise, in the story of the Tower of Babel, the tower is reminiscent of a tall tree, which seems to describe a human challenge against God, as well as a desperate struggle to climb the tower to find the origin.
We, the defective human beings, live by floating the world of chaos. The incessant questions derived from chaos might be the reason or signification of our existence.
Wozu originated from the bizarre and mystic image of myself reflected in the water.
These sentences were written right after I suddenly awoke from sleep, opening the starting point of my work:
I saw a reflection of myself in the water, and there was a stranger.
I wish he would disappear tomorrow.
Dongwook Lee (South Korean, b. 1973, he/him/his) lives and works in Yangpyeong, South Korea. He graduated from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, with a major in Chinese. His commercial work includes clients Nike, Reebok, Calvin Klein, Samsung, LG, Levi’s, and fashion magazines Bazaar, GQ, Elle, Marie Claire, etc.
As an exhibiting artist, his works have been shown in South Korea, Bulgaria, Japan, Italia, England, Georgia, Ethiopia, United States Of America. He was selected for the 2021 PHEST (International Festival Of Photography And Arts In Italy) Open Call. He is the Grand Prize Winner of 2017 Lumiere Award in Los Angeles, CA, the Jury Award Winner of 2017 Hiii Photography in China, and the Grand Prize Winner of 2007 HP (Hewlett-Packard) Turn-On Digital Award in Korea. His work is in the collection of the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts.