Attention! Zombies

YUH Sunkoo

〈King & Clown〉, 1999.

stoneware, glazed, 200×150×100cm, collection of the Clayarch Gimhae Museum, courtesy of the artist

〈Memory of Sabbath〉, 1999.

porcelain, glazed, slipcasting, 91×45cm, collection of the Clayarch Gimhae Museum, courtesy of the artist

YUH Sunkoo is known for his expressive ceramic sculptures of figures consisting broad symbols and various colors. As his works refute the artist’s background of Korean American immigrant, it show hybridity that crosses between the Eastern mythical creature and the Western pop culture images. At
the same time, his works borrow the form of theater of the absurd that is mingled with symbolic images, so they operate as socio-political criticism. For example, , the colossal ceramic sculpture of a king riding on a clown symbolically shows class conflict or repression. In the historical images summed up the social absurdities that caused the French Revolution are reproduced with a skull, a teeth-baring piranha, and a mythical creature reminiscent of a dragon or an unicorn lion, Haetae, in a fully grotesque way. specially created from the clay and the kiln of Jingdezhen, shows the everyday life and the imaginary events buried in the artist’s unconsciousness. The images from the religion and folk tales of the Eastern and the Western culture in six scenes reveal the inner conflict and the image of utopia experienced in daily life as a mixed state.