Juxtapoz Art and Culture-Spring_2019

58 SPRING 2019

ON THE OUTSIDE

South Korea and Russia were about me, the

mural in France is purely about other people,

about citizens. I would talk with them while

they imprinted their fingerprints, and perhaps

this work seems to have a different meaning

depending on the people and where it is done.

I saw how lovingly you scraped pieces of dried

and flaking paint from the walls during Nuart,

some, of course, which were painted by visiting

artists and then painted over again and again.

There’s history in the walls. I get a sense of loss

from your work. Is this a feeling you recognize

and try and generate in the viewer?

I try not to present something in my practice. It's

not a representation of my ideas, but a reaction of

my senses about things. The rust, decay, corroded

wall traces, old posters, and peeled paint shells

that occur over time can be associated with a

sense of loss. However, when time is included as

part of work, the loss can acquire permanence.

It reminds me of the concepts around Hauntology,

which, I guess, could be best described as the

memory of a lost future, the crackle of vinyl used

in contemporary electronic music by the likes of

Burial, for example. Do you have a relationship to

techno and electronic music?

There is a sense of retrospective texture linked to

how I choose materials, but I don’t know if there is

a part of the method of techno or electronic music

that I directly identify with my practice. I like the

sensibilities of Portishead, Massive Attack and

David Lynch.

Your most recent series, Stolen Times, where you

use peeling paint from walls and abandoned

objects and reconfigure them into studio

artworks—do you also use the same technique

for creating street pieces?

Yes. Mostly, I collect materials everywhere I go.

Since the characteristics of each city and street

are different, it is possible to collect materials of

slightly different texture and color. I use what

I collect on the site and bring the materials

to the studio and continue to work. Street

pieces are more influenced by the surrounding

environment. There are some moments and

points that are accidentally found as I move

through the streets. Installing work in the white

cube is similar, but there are many more things

to consider on the street.

A monograph of Jazoo Yang’s work will be released

in 2019.

jazooyang.com

Above: Works from Stolen Time (Materials series), Works made from using peeling paint from wall, pieces of houses and abandoned things from the street