Once you walk over a yellow-colored bridge that can be seen even from afar, you find a strange building with sharp pillars. It is a building designed with installation art by Mr. Son Il-gwang himself, a 1st-generation fashion designer and the artist at Yellow Bridge Art Gallery & Cafe.

The entrance of the gallery is a café. When I stepped into the café, Mr. Son greeted by saying that today is his turn to work and stay at the gallery, and handed me a cup of cold iced Americano. He completed a barista course as the oldest student in the class.

“The art that I do is that prior to a brush. They were created based on a question, “What is art of the mankind?”, before brushes were invented. You may regard Bangudae Petroglyphs in Ulsan as an artwork prior the days of brushes.”

Mr. Son has created all of the art pieces currently displayed at Yellow Bridge Art Gallery & Cafe, and his work is still in progress. The intentions behind each artwork in the words of the artist himself are much easier to understand and leave a greater emotional impact.

First, I stand before an artwork on which the convex and concave sides of spoons are initially attached to one another in clusters but then become more sparsely situated. He says that he was inspired by the shapes of raindrops falling from the eaves when he created this piece. The spoons whose concave sides are attached make a person to be viewed as upside down while those with convex sides in clusters show a person in an upright position. The spoons have a power to deform and flip someone who weighs nearly 80kg without any force. Mr. Son intends to state that even a small, weak thought may transform the world.

There is also an artwork created by 4,800 beer glasses and a piece inspired by the question of “why a toilet becomes a symbol of dirtiness after a person sits on it and excretes feces although the very essence of the toilet never changed.”

Mr. Son’s creations have been manufactured based on his extensive knowledge in mathematics and science, including the Pythagorean theorem, periodic table of elements, Einstein’s theory of relativity and the galaxy. To those who are amazed at his comprehensive knowledge and explanations spanning mathematics, science and history, he warns that people only value memorization of difficult subjects and, thus, forget the most fundamental common knowledge.”

“The question of ‘why?’ must be always in your head. That is how you may reach a great truth.”

Looking at Mr. Son who is still full of passion for arts and knowledge despite his age nearing the 80 years, there was a question I wished to ask.

“When are you the happiest?”

“I am happiest when a new idea or a brilliant thought pops up in my head. I was ecstatic when I thought about a dress made of clips because no one had thought about it before.”

In the world over the yellow bridge, I could learn how to read the road signs of life.

Written and photos by Kim Sun-joo

Website http://yellowbridge.kr/

<Copyright(c)2002 GGC All rights reserved.>