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French artist Olivier Babin got this phrase from an epitaph at a cemetery in Colma, a small town south of San Francisco, and used it in this painting. Babin's works are on display at Seomi& Tuus Gallery, Cheongdam-dong, through Jan. 23. / Courtesy of Seomi& Tuus Gallery
By Cathy Rose A. Garcia
Staff Reporter
The walls of Seomi&Tuus Gallery in Cheongdam-dong, southern Seoul have been repainted in black and white for rising French artist Olivier Babin's exhibit ``We Live/ In A Time Of Our Own.''
Each of the floor's walls were alternately painted black and white not only for aesthetic value, but also to serve as a canvas for Babin's minimalist works.
In an interview with The Korea Times last week, the 33-year old artist said that the exhibition depicts the journey of life.
``I really wanted to show a trip or travel through time and space. There are four levels that we have to go through, and then go back again. There's no real way to escape because when you go to the top, you have to go back down again,'' he said.
The first floor is starkly black, with a glass of milk on a shelf as the only white object. The glass of milk was inspired by the Alfred Hitchcock thriller ``Suspicion,'' wherein the lead female character suspects that her lover is about to poison her.
``There's this famous scene in the movie where her lover is holding a glass of milk and she's sure that the glass is poisoned. It's a black-and-white film, and Hitchcock actually placed a light bulb inside the glass to make it more white and suspicious. This milk is the only light we have in the first floor. We have to change the milk every day, like an offering at a temple, because milk has the tendency to absorb the smells in the atmosphere, making it poisonous at the end of the day,'' Babin said.
On the floor there are bundles of newspapers which have been painted black. For ``Bad News Travels Fast,'' Babin used the free newspaper Metro Korea, and painted it. ``These newspapers are always loaded with bad news,'' he said.
Renowned minimalist master On Kawara inspired Babin's minimalist style of using simple words and phrases. ``When I Was 17,'' which features seven consecutive dates Jan. 1, 1997 to Jan. 7, 1997 written backwards on a black canvas, is taken from Kawara's ``Pure Consciousness'' series.
``All of these works that I do are after On Kawara's existing works. He made these date paintings for real, so I just twisted them. Its literally a `retrospective' since you look at it backwards,'' Babin said.
On the second floor, there is a series of framed covers of the American magazine LIFE. Three of the covers feature the red LIFE logo, while one cover features the black logo.
``The only time in history LIFE changed the logo to black was when John F. Kennedy, Jr. died. I bought dozens of the magazine on Ebay. The images on the cover are very dramatic, and it goes backward in time, 1963, 1964, 1965 and 1966,'' Babin said.
He also used the word LIFE on a series of paintings, featuring three with a red background and one with a black background.
On the other hand, death also occupies Babin's works such as ``Home of Peace'' and ``Hills of Eternity,'' which refer to two cemeteries in Colma, a funeral town south of San Francisco, California.
Babin loves taking objects out of their original context in order to look at them in a new light. ``By the Book'' is a series of white sheets of Braille paper framed in glass. Viewers can only look at the white sheets of paper through glass. They are thus prevented from touching the Braille dots and deciphering their meaning. ``I don't even know if it is Braille in English or French,] or what kind of book it is,'' he said.
Babin also incorporates lots of pop culture references in his works, which often have humorous or poetic qualities. There's a video showing cartoon character Lisa Simpson look with amazement as she sees flying penguins. Another work refers to a line in little-known Johnny Depp movie ``Dead Man.''
From the fourth floor, visitors have to walk back down through each of the previous floors. Babin said that he wants people to take second looks at his works with new perspectives, and get feelings of hope, courage and admiration for life.
``It's like life. You start from the bottom, with a lot of mystery. As you grow older, you gain more knowledge and look at life in a new light,'' he said.
A film buff, Babin treats the entire exhibit as a movie. He notes how moving from one floor to the other is either a ``fade-in to black or fade-out to black.'' It only seems natural that next year he's planning to make his own film.
Babin, a native of Dijon, France, studied philosophy at Universite de Bourgogne in 1998. He has participated in exhibitions in Paris, London and New York.
The exhibit runs through Jan. 15. Call (02) 511-7305 or visit www.seomituus.com (map available on the Web site).
cathy@koreatimes.co.kr
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