Choi Xooang

Choi Xooang is a sculpture. He was born in 1975 in Seoul, Korea. He has an M.A. in sculpture. He produces wonderful (and VERY entriguing) clay sculptures which are deformed, twisted, wrong, mutilated and very interesting for the eye to look at. Xooang is attempting to draw attention to human rights abuses in Korea, and seeing these somewhat macabre, stunted figures unable to see or speak, it’s hard to dispute that. I would like to take my own pictures (as well as using glossy celebs as stated in my previous shoot idea) and edit them to have a similar effect as Xooang's sculptures do.

This is an example of one of his sculptures. As you can sea the figure has only eyes and ears on its head- no mouth or nose. I find this piece ever so creepy- mainly because of the mouth missing and the fact that it looks like a child (children make everything seem much more creepier). The colour of it is so dull and pale with only the colouring in the eyes and ears. All these features of the sculpture make me feel like it's expressing that one can only see and hear things but cannot be heard. It springs to mind the old saying 'children must be seen, not heard'. The scattered simples within the surface of the clay, to me, resemble some sort of harm, some sort of wounding. It makes me feel quite sad. The figure's head is tilted as if it's just asked a question and is looking for an answer. The body on the figure looks scrawny and malnourished. Overall, the piece of work seems to portray a sad story crying out for help.     This other example of his artwork with the two people kissing and interlocking their tongues is a little digusting. But, saying that,  think it's quite relevant to the 21st century as we seem to be a nation obsessed with sex. The two heads are coming out of two seperate walls, both bald, and interlocking tongues- very long tongues. Unless one of them is actually female, I am going to assume that they are both male. Assuming they are both male, I think they are a gay couple which find it difficult to show their love for one another- not because they don't want to- but because of their culture. Homosexuality is frowned upon in korea (which I found out after doing some searching on the internet). To me this explains why the walls are holding each of them back (representing society) and they are reacihng as far as they can using their necks just to touch one another, using their very long tongues to meet and kiss in the middles. I think the tongues have been made extra long and are on full view to produce something controversial and to send a message out to say 'WE DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK.'