Lee Kiejin Professor at the Department of Physics at Sogang University

Artist & Artwork - Björn Dahlem

Many theories exist in the realm of physics. Although such theories attempt to explain the world by confining it into logical frames, there is no ‘ultimate theory’ that can perfectly explain the fundamental principle of the world. No one knows yet about whether such a theory does not exist in the first place or the human intelligence is not mature enough to discover it.

There is also no one that saw the universe with his bare eyes. Not a single person went beyond the event horizon to experience the black hole. Only artists can overcome such boundaries. It is because there is art that goes beyond science.

Physicists build theories by using tools called insight and mathematics. And they see the universe through those theories. Of course, they also present logical grounds to support the theories through experiments. Science is no less than a tower whose building blocks are made of logic, which is built by firm experimental frames and concrete theories. To reach an ultimate theory with higher level of completion, physicists deliver their stories about physics in the form of academic paper. Within such logic lie new perspectives to see the world and convey perspectives that open up the new horizon. Artists also convey their logic in their works and show us their new perspectives.

How would the structure of the world look like to the eyes of artists? It is obvious that it cannot be approached through mathematical theories. However, we might still ask about how artists look at the universe in certain ways with confidence and visualize the world of quantum dynamics invisible to human eyes.

Like a physicist that explainsan idea through his sharp intelligent insight, Björn Dahlem conveys in his works the images that represent him. In works that are in the shape of figures that look toward the universe, he expresses in his own way that is the most human and tender – the sky, the universe, clouds, trees, the galaxy, great cathedrals, the beginning of the world, and the end of the world, materialized using fragile objects such as tree branches, mirrors, and bulbs – as if he did so with delicacy and exquisiteness with a mind of an innocent child.

What he expresses is clearly a visual language of his own. Similar to the existing ways of looking at the universe, the cosmological model of the big bang that has been incorporated into human history, and how an astronomer might have been observing stars for a long time, the artist expresses ideas in his own way. He attempts to present the universe in the most poetic and romantic look. By doing so, he emphasizes that the universe created by him is a very special place. And he tells us that one can see such a universe once he goes beyond the boundary.

“Please come beyond the event horizon.”

The artist’s work anticipates us to come beyond the event horizon, like a block hole. This is because the world changes once one crosses the horizon. It also means that one isolates himself from any kind of situation that engages with the outside. In addition, it means that the artist asks us to digest and understand his work within the space of his own, without any influence from the outside. He is unbelievably poetic, sees the universe most romantically, transparently crosses stars as if he lightly walks through the universe, and lures us to enter the space of the deep galaxy. He goes beyond some constellations in the sky and the boundary between the sky and darkness to enter the hole within a black hole that no one has ever reached, showing us space and time where stars born and vanish. He tells us stories as if he was right there by himself.

Other sculptures by the artist feature wooden sticks, old objects that one might see at secondhand shops or a flea market in the neighborhood, eternally suspended clocks, fluorescent lamps, and pieces of glass. All these materials are props that are imperfect to explain the concreteness of the universe.

However, the artist expresses the universe through imperfect materials like humans. Further, his sculptures do not merely stay at attempting to express the galaxy as the universe. In there, he tries to express the classical ideas of the solar system from the past and contemporary astronomy. However, the overall depiction of science that the artist tries to present through such materials is unscientific, and it is even too ambiguous to understand for ordinary people. Why does he show such a scientific ambiguity then?

Björn Dahlem’s perspective departs from the fact that there is nothing absolute in the realm of scientific truth. The universe expressed by physicists is the world seen through mathematical calculations and the logic of abstract forms in the direction of logical perspectives. Of course, it is a realm that ordinary people cannot understand at all. It is also not possible to deliver the cold scientific realm through a perspective like that of the artist. However, it is fine for an artist to express the world he sees in a way that ordinary people can understand. In such a work he explains everything about the universe, acknowledges the scientific truth contained within it, and reveals the truth. Surprisingly enough, the universe that the artist presents is without a flaw. Wouldn’t it because his outlook on the universe is not theorized enough like those of scientists?

The truth that the artist tries to present is not an absolute one. And the vision of the universe he tries to introduce is not the one that is unchanging. They show us that we are located within ideological concerns or the balance between different imaginations. Whatever the answer is, if there is no answer, or if the answer firmly exists, our doubt on our view ofp the universe is always open and universal.

An artist is a person who puts the light in the darkness of the black hole that is a great mass of gravity, breathing life into all the stars that are losing their life. The energy he keeps is maintained for the sake of showing us another world. This is the energy we acquire while we travel through the universe through Björn Dahlem. Though the artist’s interesting approach toward the invisible universe might differ from a cold gaze of a physicist, scientists and artists always encounter with each other in certain ways. I assume that what Björn Dahlem shows is a new scientific reasoning that is not visible.

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