'Moonlight Crowns:' crowns for everyone
Installation view of Yeesookyung's exhibition “Moonlight Crowns” at the Art Sonje Center in Jongno District, central Seoul / Courtesy of Art Sonje Center
By Park Han-sol
A golden, bejeweled crown in the old days was, of course, more than just a head adornment. It was a symbol of power, empowering the wearer to exert absolute influence over an entire kingdom and its people.
For a long time, visual artist Yee Soo-kyung (also stylized as Yeesookyung) has been fascinated with the idea of how this powerfully symbolic object came into being and eventually formed her own interesting theory.
“In the portrayals of Buddha, Jesus and other saints of the East and the West, we see their glowing halo. I came to think that people in ancient times could actually see with their own eyes this disk of light surrounding their chosen spiritual leader,” she said.
But after the system of hereditary monarchy formed, in which power began to be succeeded based on bloodline rather than “divine intervention,” she believes the crown became “a secular substitute for the halo.”
And this thought soon formed the basis of her ongoing sculpture series, “Moonlight Crowns.” Eleven pieces from the series, which she began in 2017, are on display at the exhibition of the same title at the Art Sonje Center in Jongno District, central Seoul.
Yeesookyung's “Moonlight Crown ― Dragon's Bride” (2018) / Courtesy of the artist
The most notable aspect of each tower-like sculpture is the location of the crown, which is placed at the very bottom as a support rather than atop the piece. It then continues upward to the bulging, ornate sphere all the way to the thin, vertical structure resembling a building's spire.
By subverting the traditional placement (and thus symbolic role) of the crown, Yee invites viewers to realize that the sacredness already lies within each one of us, not in a jewelry-laden object resting on top of an authority figure.
“I hope they can discover that their bodies themselves are sacred temples, their spirits resplendent crowns,” the 58-year-old artist stated.
Upon closer inspection, viewers soon notice the sheer range of the materials used to complete the densely covered sculpture ― brass, steel, crystal, 24K gold, pearl, mother-of-pearl, rough gemstones and shards of mirrored glass.
The small patterns and shapes depicted within each piece vary just as much ― angels, crosses, dragons, cartoon characters and magic wands ― as they come from a number of different religions, mythologies and even pop culture. Yee gathers these fragments of religious and cultural references and purposefully takes them out of their original context to fuse them together to form an entirely different narrative.
“Nowadays when religion no longer holds the absolute power it had back then, these shapes and images remain separated from their spiritual origins, often used on the surface level as decorations or fashion items. I wanted to combine these fragments of symbols from different eras and sources into a single organic structure,” the artist noted.
She, in fact, likens her “Moonlight Crowns” series to a “smelting furnace,” where different materials and symbolic images are fused to give birth to a new world with no distinction between good and evil, past and present or men and women.
Whereas the crown is associated with the sun and conventional male authority, Yee's moonlight crown points to the imagined realm that subverts traditional notions of power and religion.
Her version of the crown is meant for everyone.
The exhibition “Moonlight Crowns” runs through Sept. 26 at the Art Sonje Center.
A view of Yeesookyung's exhibition “Moonlight Crowns” at the Art Sonje Center / Courtesy of Art Sonje Center