On the Ordinary Overman:
Yooah Park’s Übermensch Series
Baek-Kyun Kim / Joong-Ang University
From Ressentiment-Hyo to the Mr. & Mrs. series, and finally her Übermensch series,
a common thread throughout Yooah Park’s work is the subject of human beings,
the conditions that make one a human being, and the insoluble hardships and paradoxical fate that follow those conditions. Ressentiment-Hyo dealt with the anguish and rupture of
consciousness that result when the finite love of a child—who has no recollection of being
part of a parent’s body—is faced with the unconditional love of the parent, who sees the
child as a part of themselves. Her Mr. & Mrs. series contemplates the reality in which even a marriage that began with love and faith in that love falters under the roles demanded by society when placed within a societal structure. Love dissipates before the demands of the roles prescribed by the institution and greedy opportunists who profit from the preservation of that institutional structure. The Übermensch series in this exhibition explores an image of a world that transforms when the artist shifts her vantage point from that of a child looking upon a parent (as in Ressentiment-Hyo) to that of a parent looking upon a child.
Park’s Übermensch series centers around the subject of Korean adoptees. While one does not need to understand why Park was drawn to this subject in order to understand the work, establishing this understanding would give some insight into her practice as a whole.
Park took interest in this subject neither out of conviction in a social movement nor because of her proximity to Korean adoptees or those affected by the subject. The Übermensch series began with her chance encounter with Side by Side, a documentary film project about Korean adoptees. In hindsight, we can speculate about what captivated Park and made her take particular interest in the subject of adoptees out of all the issues of humankind that she has encountered. However, no conclusive explanation lies behind the
origins of this interest.
Of course we can infer that Park’s own personal history of departure from her native
country to relocation in a foreign place contributed to her choosing this subject, as well as
her being a parent of two children. However, this too is a mere inference drawn from speculations regarding her individual circumstances. Strictly speaking, Park being someone’s parent and her departure from Korea have nothing to do with each other.
Nevertheless, the intersection of these two circumstances in her own life likely contributed
to the empathy she felt toward the lives of the Korean adoptees in the documentary, who
had to endure the struggles that inherently accompany these two conditions. Their stories
told Park about their departure from their homes, not by their own volition but through
circumstances out of their control; despite all this, the determination to find firm
grounding within their given environments in order to survive; and the identity crisis that
results from their inability to assimilate in a new society and environment with determination alone. Perhaps the combination of these realities struck a chord in her as a
parent, while the perseverance of each in their given circumstances gave her solace about
her own life.
Each story in the documentary showed Park the magnificent models of human existence born from the determination and perseverance of the subjects. She then used those superb forms of being as the subject of her work. In other words, the subject of her work is more specifically the magnificent models of being exhibited by the individuals, rather than the Korean adoptees themselves.
Park’s Übermensch series begins with portraits of Korean adoptees as seen through
the artist’s lens. We often hold shallow prejudices about adoptees from our limited
experiences: because they have been estranged from their blood relations, we think of the
deprivation of affection from their biological parents or siblings, and images of the dilapidated conditions that led to their adoptions. The fact that Park saw them through the
lens of a parent indicates that she felt empathy through the filter of such prejudices, and
that empathy gave her the impetus to peer into their lives. Her gaze thus encompasses dual and multilateral viewpoints.
Park’s portraits include both people who are racially mixed and those who are not, but regardless of which, all of their faces seem to exist somewhere between Asian and Western: their likenesses bear the traces of conflict, exchange, and coalescence of Eastern and Western cultures. This is particularly apparent in the made-up faces of women, whose visages show the result of makeup techniques for Western faces applied to Asian faces.
While such makeup may appear strange to Koreans, it is likely the norm and may even
contribute to an enhanced sense of beauty from the perspective of those in Western
cultures. In some ways, it is inevitable that the faces of Korean adoptees reflect a mixture
of two cultures. They follow different health regimens, which causes them to absorb
nutrients differently. Their climates are different. Their aesthetic tastes differ as the result
of cultural differences, which then produces different behaviors, gestures, and movements.
Those differences thereby show the traces of their fight for survival. In other words, it would be stranger for them not to appear differently.
Park viewed the adoptees through the lens of a parent because she noticed differences that she attributed to the tragic history of post-war Korea. Consequently, when Park sensed unease in these multicultural faces, she believed that the feeling came from their confused sense of identities. However, she recognized the error of her conclusions and her manner of perception within that discomfort. This bestowed her an opportunity to see the truth about a universal “human being” hidden beneath them. Such a moment of realization comes when our intuition grants us an outsider’s vantage point to allow self- reflection. In that moment, Park recognized that the adoptees themselves did not cause her unease, but rather her own unsettled view of the adoptees.
In truth, Park’s mind also created the idea of the parent’s aching gaze toward these
individuals. Just like history has no family, they have no family in their lives. The idea of
this aching compassion relies on the illusory premise that they would have been happier if
their parents had raised them in Korea. However, this too is a mere fiction of the artist’s
mind. Although exceptions exist, there is no guarantee that adoptees would have led better
lives if their biological parents had raised them. Adoptees are not victims of misfortune.
They too have their own lives to live. Whether here or there, time passes at their own pace
within their lives. Once we recognize this, their struggle through life does not seem worthy
of pity, but rather of reverence. This is a reflection of us, and of humankind. When we
recognize that we are the adoptees and they are us, we can finally apprehend the essence
of life, that despite all of our differences, we ultimately share an identical core.
Park saw an “Overman” (Übermensch) within that magnificent model of human existence. In order to understand Park’s Übermensch series, we must bear in mind that the Übermensch in her work diverges from Nietzsche’s idea of the Overman: a life-affirming
entity who has overcome one’s own limits or, put differently, a state of being that leads to
“will-to-power,” “nihilism,” and “eternal recurrence.” Instead, Park utilizes the secondary
functions of the concept. In other words, the concept of the Übermensch does not exist as
a world itself through its combination with other components in her work, but acts as a
trigger that guides us toward the invisible world of “truth” hidden within the secret chamber of fantasy and illusion. The world of truth in which 60/60US and 88/88US live exists without purpose, its meaningless entities scattered like dust or serial numbers devoid of feeling. In other words, Park continues her exploration of the self exposing the loss of self through her Übermensch series, just as she did in her Mr. & Mrs. series, where faces (identities) disappear to leave behind only the roles they once played. 60/60US and 88/88US are simply human beings who play their given roles to the best of their ability from where they are. From this perspective, life itself is an enactment of roles.
The basic premise of role-playing is the absence of self. Only mechanical roles remain where individual identities have disappeared. Park’s Übermensch series shows that the essence of life consists of each human being living the life dictated by their given environments, all under the illusion of individuality. Thus the revered Übermensch is not in
fact such a lofty existence. Just as we revere our own unyielding perseverance within the
relentless battle against hardships, Park’s concept of the Übermensch functions as a multifarious mechanism comprised of both grandeur and the ordinary.
Translation by Candy Koh