Lim Dong-Lak: Meditations on Time, Space and Light

By Heike Dempster

“I sculpt light and space. My working world is the commitment of my soul and the search for a middle course,”¹ says Korean sculptor Lim Dong-Lak. He equates light with hope and creates work that incorporates light, reflections and the environment into balanced embodiments of harmony.

Based between Busan, Korea, and Paris, Lim Dong-Lak sculpts large-scale, three-dimensional, stainless-steel forms that evoke thoughts and philosophical meditations on time, space and light. He explores the essence of form and idea of dualism and questions interpretations of perceived reality through his abstract and inventive works. At first glance, the smooth, polished and sleek sculptures appear mysterious and otherworldly in their mathematical precision, yet they become part of the environment as they reflect their surroundings and its ever-changing movements.

Lim Dong Lak, Point Protoplasm I, 2000, stainless steel, h: 21.3’ x w: 78.75” x d: 78.75.” La Defense, France.

Born in Daejeon in the south of Seoul in 1953, Lim Dong-Lak is also a professor at the Department of Sculpture at Dong-A University in Busan, board member of the Busan Biennale Organizing Corporation, advisor of the Korean Modern Sculpture Association and a member of La Maison des Artistes in France. His work and critical thinking represent an effort to unite contemporary concerns with traditional Korean aesthetics, minimal in form and maximum in content. His distinct visual language corresponds to an innate logic that translates internationally.

Sculptor Lim Dong Lak.

Says Marc Jimenez of the Université de Paris, “The monumental sculptures of Lim Dong-Lak evoke the strange and fertile distinction, put forward by the great Viennese art historian, Alois Riegl, between roundness and curvature seen in the organic and the abrupt and angular discipline seen in the inorganic”²

The sculptor’s use of the latest digital technology and sketching on the computer before crafting forms out of steel integrates architectural aspects and combines modernity with tradition, always alert to the organic quality of nature. His sculptures are ever-changing, ever in flux, re-created again and again by not only the spaces in which they are placed, but also by every change of light and every breeze, as leaves are moved by the wind, altering the reflections on the sculptures’ surfaces.

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Lim Dong Lak, Point Gate, 1996, stainless steel, h: 82.67” x w: 110” x d: 118.” COEX, Seoul, Korea.

Lim Dong-Lak questions our perception of reality through these often distorted reflections he deliberately manipulates with mathematical precision, via his decisions of which surfaces are reflective and which are not, and how he positions the sculptures within any given space. Yet there remains an element of the unknown, the unpredictable.

The tensions caused by this unpredictability are balanced by the harmony of the sculptures. Lim Dong-Lak presents contradictions by juxtaposing symmetry with the non-symmetrical, the horizontal with the vertical, and the reflective with the non-reflective, but these contradictions are absorbed into the all-inclusive oneness of each sculpture. Part of Lim Dong-Lak’s sophistication is his mastery of reconciliation of contradictions and dualisms, like light and shadow, certainty and uncertainty, tradition and modernity, as well as compactness and openness, as he allows each sculpture to become part of the world that inspired it, inviting viewers to observe, engage, enjoy, question and become part of the art.

Lim Dong Lak, Point-Blue Bird, 2008, stainless steel, special coating, h: 39.37” x w: 28.8” x d: 44.9.”

Lim Dong-Lak’s first solo exhibition in Miami is on view at Lélia Mordoch Gallery until July 5, 2014. 2300 North Miami Ave. Wynwood Art District. Miami, FL, 33127 / Phone: 786 431 1506 / www.galerieleliamordoch.com / lelia.mordoch.gallery@gmail.com / Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, noon - 6:00 pm, and by appointments.

NOTES

1. “Lim Dong Lak: Movement as Experiment” by Beate Reifenscheid, Director Ludwig Museum in the Deutschherrenhaus, Koblenz. In: Lim Dong Lak in Baden-Baden. Baden, Germany: Galerie Frank Pages, p. 14.

2. “The Sculptures of Lim Dong Lak: From Opacity to Light” by Marc Jimenez, Professeur d’Esthetique et Sciences de l’art Universite de Paris (Pantheon Sorbonne). In: Lim Dong Lak in Baden-Baden. p. 11.

Heike Dempster is a writer and radio host based in Miami and actively involved in the local art scene.