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 written by Noam kim 
 

  1.         When looking back the history of human civilization, are the aesthetic principles and activities that the spirited contemporary art pursues a general phenomenon of expressing what has existed from the beginning into its time? Will this idiosyncratic phenomenon of our time that emerged around the beginning of the 20^th century and has become the most distinctive part of culture be lasting? If there exists something permanent and general, what will an individual’s aesthetic preference and practice be like?
           The contemporary art is said to thrive around the western culture that marched on triumphantly and swept the world based on its modernism founded on top of the Industrial Revolution and the Reformation along with the Illuminism. It is also said to be the flower of world order and culture reorganized after the first and the second World Wars.
           When looking at ourselves in this regard, what meanings does the contemporary Korean art have or what does it look like in the society that has gone through a tumultuous history such as Japanese colonization, Korean War, division of the country, military dictatorship, industrialized and diploma-oriented society, civil society and democratization. For those who live in today’s world of economic abundance and consumption, entertainment and leisure of cutting-edge multimedia that have grown incomparably larger than the past, the contemporary art has definitely changed from that of the end 19^th century, the early 20^th century, or the period around the world wars.  
           People still expect new and unique young artists and want to confirm that we are at a different stage, somewhat better or more advanced from the past. It can be a certain desire or vision that crosses the center of civilization or it is expressed as a phenomenon of contemporary art.
We can notice that the artists strive to go ahead of the profound vision and meanings between these ideas and enter the transcendental world.
 

 2         Whilst a number of contemporary artists take the car as their main motif to convey their artistic vision, Han Jeong Seong approaches it from a different perspective. His work seems to set the Korea’s distinctive history and its cultural awareness into the frame of world history, through the car that is a product of automobile industry, which heavily supports the Korean economy, as well as a convenience of contemporary civilization. The work by Han Jeong Seong uses small miniature cars and some kinds of situations and yet it induces the somewhat tragic and gloomy scenery. His work is nowhere near the cheerfulness, wit and frivolous humor that we normally find or expect to find in the works by young artists. To Han, the car is no longer a top item on the youngster’s wish list or a leader of the high tech industrial society. Instead, it is the very object that indicates mental collapse and ruin of the people today.
           Among the numerous mechanical devices invented during the 20^th century wars when the whole world was burning down, Germany made the elaborate and solidly-built automobiles. The cars broke the human civilization down and they were developed and also used as a device of massive homicide. Using the car as a symbol of destructive material civilization, Han Jeong Seong alarms the selfish human desire and destructive danger that lies beneath secularism and materialism in the highly capitalized and weapon industrial society. Though the experiences of those who suffered wars are handed down in records or as a pseudo-experience, it is an ongoing incident to the artist. As a matter of fact, wars and manslaughter are still occurring somewhere in the world. However, unless you do experience it for real, it can never be your own experience. Therefore, the work by Han Jeong Seong and the message it carries bear a deep scar and it seems like the scar is still bleeding.
The wretched car being rushed from somewhere, stuck in the wall and still burning in fire. Threatening and breaking down the space of cutthroat contemporary art, using the cars. Raising spirituality or religious holiness along with the cynicism and sarcasm over the material civilization today. The work by Han Jeong Seong presents metaphorical installations and intense objects full of ominous premonitions that recall the gloomy metaphorical landscape by Giorgio de Chirico who lived a life in the mid 20^th century Europe.