About The Artist

Critique

 Byu is an excellent fable teller. His continuous "animal-human" motif is to suggest a true picture of society in a metaphorical way. We can approach his "animal-human" in two ways. One is "animalization of humans" and the other is "humanization of animals." The former reveals the process of humans becoming animals by letting human values in life, such as ethics toward others, be collapsed in the capitalistic system of exchange. The latter discloses the reality that the nature is subordinated to the culture by having been destroyed and all the worse possessed violently by the culture. In other words, through two visual methods of "humanization" and "animalization," Byu leads the viewers to look directly at the problems the world is facing today. In this solo exhibition, he expresses the reality where the "animals" cannot but wear civilized "clothes/ equipments" and consequently he criticizes the reality where we only can reach "the nature," which the world is exterminating today, through the culture in irony. Isn't A Crane in Boots or A Polar Bear Eating Ice Cream recalling the issue of "ecosystem" and "environments" in the crisis? They visually testify the catastrophic scene of glaciers in the North Pole melting at an enormous speed. 

Here we know why we should attach great importance to the visual language Daeyong Byun uses to create his work. His visual language is not autistic or exclusive as he diagnoses what "crisis" the world is facing today. Byu's "fables" bring the matters that have been ignored or considered secondary into the "apparent foreground" and so he expands the meaning of his visual language in the reality. Critical thinking about reality is necessary for the artist to use the evocative texts and "allegories,"which are clearly linked to social reality, naturally interlocking the texts with reality. Of course, the allegorical method could put a limitation on the meaning of the visual language. However, Byu's "fables" are not as formulaic as in the general allegories. They are not educative or compulsory on the viewers with the artist's value judgment on the social circumstances, and thus they don't fall into cliches. In summary, the meaning in his work of art is not predetermined or interpreted in one way, but become abundant as the artist deals with the proposed issues in an approach to allow specific experiences as found in Hot Ice Cream. Therefore, his fables are not just declaring the end of the planet Earth, but softly reminding us that we should take care of every corner of our life. Isn't "the power of fables" in the work by Byu, who opens his eyes and ears to the fears in reality, giving us the strength to endure through the hard time? Most of all, the person who never returns, the irrevocable seasons and the vanishing animals... not to lament for them but to remember them all through the nights, we surely need such endurance.