Thursday Edition: Hosang Park
Howon-dong
11"x14" ($50) | 20"x24" ($500) | 30"x40" ($2000) | 40"x50" ($5000)
and
Uman-dong
11"x14"($50) | 20"x24" ($500) | 30"x40" ($2000) | 40"x50" ($5000)
by
Hosang Park
En-route-to-Austin-after-a-fabulous-Wednesday Thursday greetings, collectors! The Dot Dot Dot lecture last night was a blast, in large part due to Liz Danzico's expert stewardship. I left White Rabbit quite enamored with the way she's structured the series — a generous amount of time for cocktails and mingling beforehand, followed by a lean schedule of four ten-minute talks, their midpoint punctuated with a just-long-enough intermission — resulting in a decidedly un-fidgety and attentive audience.
Included in the good-listening — not to mention good-lookin' — crowd were Design Notes author Michael Surtees, the blogosphere's favorite Swiss Miss, Tina Roth-Eisenberg, designer Jason Santa Maria and the fabulous Emily Gordon, Editor-in-Chief of Print Magazine, who's been at the top of my people-I-want-to-meet list for a while now.
Thanks to the genius scheduling of Liz, I also had ample time to chat with my fellow presenters, grid-loving Bek Hodgson, datalicious Nicholas Felton and the content-pirating Jason Kottke, who stole the show with the final presentation of the evening. This was a great warm-up for our SXSW panel, which is next on my list after introducing today's editions. Let's get on with the show, shall we?
A crafted-in-midair edition announcement is utterly apropos for Hosang Park's striking photographs, Howon-dong and Uman-dong. In anticipation of writing this newsletter, I made certain to take notice of the landscape spreading out beneath us as we took flight a few hours ago. Comparing the very familiar terrain of Manhattan to Hosang's otherworldly-to-me densities of Korean cities is a satisfying endeavor on its own. Viewed from a distance their grids and verticality create a tenuous kinship between my view and his vision, making his world seem a bit less alien.
Looking at the view from here, or from there, or elsewhere, I start to wonder about the view from above. Is it omnipotent or utterly banal? Prior to the ubiquity of air travel, it was a rareified view indeed. I'd argue that a surge of majesty is instinctual when surveying the planet from such a remove, or at least a sense of being closer to God, if you happen to believe that he's inhabiting the heavens. And yet, frequent and increasingly beleaguered flyers that we are, majesty might not be the first thing that comes to mind when taking in the view from coach. It's easy to feel a sense of isolation and anonymity more akin to Hopper than a beatitude a la Michelangelo when you're eating cereal out of a plastic container from a plastic spoon, with the rest of the world far away and the jet engine's din numbing you to your closest, probably too close, neighbor.
The answer isn't simple of course, and I'd imagine that there are plenty of more scholarly art aficionados who've given this question more consideration than the three hours this flight has allowed me. For now, I can say confidently that it's a little bit of both. There's a lot to worry about when looking at the world from way up here, but it's foolish to shut yourself off to the wonder: of nature, and of man and of what man has made.
The Fasten Your Seatbelts sign is on, and my battery's running down, so with that deep thought for you to ponder, I'll take my leave till next week. I'll be back on Tuesday with Texas tales and inspiring art. Look for me then.
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