A Water Faucet Symbolized by Desire for the Communication
-Ahn, Gyusik (Busan metropolitan Museum Curator)


1. The Discovery of Inanimate Objects

"I can look at it even if it does not look at me."
Inanimate objects function as either things to be used or things to be possessed. In order for an object to be either used or possessed, the discovery of such inanimate object through subjective experience becomes closely related to objective preference in a mutually effective aspect.
For example, a faucet used to be just an inanimate object to Tae Hun Kang. However, the fragmented memories of his childhood led to the evolution of the faucet from an inanimate object to an instrument and became the keyword in his work.

When Tae Hun Kang was in 6th grade, he was one of hundreds of children participating in mass-games during the Asian Games, where he experienced vertigo from the political condition of Gwangju at the time where many innocent lives were sacrificed for a useless cause.
How could a young child have understood such complex political situation?
His was merely a physical reaction in response to the curiosity of the young child's exploited body. He later remembered about that experience as follows: "During the 10 minutes of break after many hours of excruciating practice, about 2000 students ran toward the water fountain to alleviate their thirst. From then on, faucets became a Holy Grail to me and from time to time showed me miraculous abilities during the times of hardship. Such is an example of inanimate objects creating miracles in special circumstances.”
Cold and solid stainless-steel faucets became something of a lifesaver to the thirsty children and they are the inspiration which led to the birth of faucets in Tae Hun Kang's work.


2. The Sowing of Deviation

The mass-game in which he participated as a youth not only led him to discover inanimate objects but also gave him an inspiration for his work. Being practically forced into participating in a short television segment of mass-game, the artist grew a strong sense of rebellion.
This experience affected him through the mandatory army service during which he was stationed near Cheongwadae, the Korean Presidential Mansion. What is interesting is that he was never a part of the violent demonstrations of the democratization movements around the country (particularly the one which took place in Gwangju on May 18, 1988), and that he was more of a victim of those events which, in a way, polluted him in theirair of madness and direct display of violence. His immature artistic sensibility, thus, continued to fizz psychologically from then on until he became an adult.
Or perhaps he knowingly and purposely halted dilution and growth of conscience based on experience as Oscar did in The Tin Drum. Regardless, the personal experience gave him a constructive motive in his "discovery of the faucets" and led him to strive for the birth of a "new republic."

And through the faucet in his mouth we can hear: (The vicious virtue that the sacrifice of the small number must be carried out for a large number in us.)

The Evolution of Inanimate Objects

Ready-made goods he collected can be broadly categorized as either inanimate objects or instruments according to Martin Heidegger's method of characterization. Inanimate goods are substances of forms created by men, which Heidegger summarizes as follows:
Therefore, according to Heidegger, Tae Hun Kang's objects were no longer mere inanimate objects but instruments with specific purposes. However, the young artist removes instrument-like qualities of the objects in order to establish and emphasize existence of the faucets.


3. The Precise Irrationality
-A High Heel and a Wooden Gong –

One can glance into the artist's near-schizophrenic obsession through his works. A sexy red pump lined with leopard-printfabric has a faucet outrageously replacing its heel, and a wooden gong has a faucet attached to it as if a mischievous monk is pulling a prank. The faucets in those works signify certain sounds which may be created from the heels or the wooden gong, and at the same time control the magnitude of those sounds. The auditory implications of the faucets elicit passion in the minds of the viewers while the visual effects of the faucets suppress it.

Violence Towards Illusive Fragments
- The Stuffed Turtle -

As the artist points out, stuffed turtles, which used to hang in every Korean living room, demonstrate fragments of religious development unknowingly existing within the society. We can find similar examples around us where the anxious people living in the present day often take solace in extinction of certain animals.

Marx pointed out that the objects are independently born as beings with lives amid the illusion of people and products. With this argument, the artist elevates the stuffed turtles into the status of illusionary objects created as a common ground between commercial fetishism and religion, and the attaching of the faucet to the stuffed turtle is an act of violent jeer.
Hence what Marx stated is concealed here by the "violent" artist through the exhibition of his artistic expression.



Extended Story

"A Clock with a Faucet" recreates a scene of murder taking place during the French Revolution. Jacques-Louis David's original work, "The Death of Marat," depicts the assassination of Marat, a leader of the Jacobins, by Charlotte Corday as if David is vividly reporting the incident. Here, this celebrated work is used by Tae Hun Kang as an ordinary object.
The aura of this masterpiece, however, is extremely charismatic that the faucet attached to it cannot easily deconstruct its identity. Thus the identity of the faucet is as distinctive as Marat's masterpiece. Unlike faucets in his other works, water actually flows through the faucet attached to the bathtub in the painting, creating a more enjoyable effect.
Just as the ordinary faucets normally let through purified water, the faucet attached to Marat's bathtub has clear water, where Marat's blood and remnants of his skin disease have been removed, running through it. However, clearness of the water attempts to erase Marat's death.
And at the same time, the sound of the water dropping brings out tension by suggesting other agendas hidden behind Marat's death.
Through his work, David directly intervenes in a complex political situation called the French Revolution. In the mailbox working as a table, the artists writes, "To Marat, From David," as if his painting was his letter to Marat, but this new work can be interpreted as a letter send to Marat from Tae Hun Kang.
The artist especially focuses on a particular text from Marat's letter, where he states, "dismantle the republic," to sanctify the death of Marat, and, ultimately, to connect Marat to the map of the world displayed across from it.