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Let's have a look at Ha Yong Joo's work of 2006, < Gasmask 0200( A woman who is smoking)>. Though its first impression is ordinary, several interesting facts can be found as soon as you gaze at it. A very thin woman having a skin of a little ash color is holding a cigarette in her hand. And this woman is wearing a gas mask. How can she smoke with a gas mask wearing? It's a very ironical setting. In addition, the contrast between yellow clothes & yellow backgrounds is very outstanding. Also, even white hair, white cigarette, white nails, white toenails, and her white panties which one can recognize only when he observes closely. It's an impressional & sensible work emphasizing a sense of rhythm with the implicit color.
< an alien of eyes > which is regarded having the tendency similar to this was submitted for this exhibition. It makes an exotic & cold atmosphere together with a dark red skin, blue pupils, white mask and black clothes. Though smoking is impossible because of mask, smoke is very thick in this picture. As seen above, 'gas mask' is important to Ha Yong Joo. The material appeared in his works frequently is the very gas mask, most of titles are gas mask, and the name of his previous exhibitions was gas mask. Gas mask takes a core role in the works of Ha Yong Joo. So, what is gas mask and what meaning does it have to the artist? Firstly, as you know roughly, gas mask is an instrument protecting face in order for poison gas, germs, radioactive substances not to damage in the respiratory organs. Gas mask was developed to prevent poison gas as a military use in the 1st World War, and its functions have been expanded continually owing to the rise of CBR Warfare. However, gas mask isn't always used only for wartime. Along with the development of industry, it came to be necessary in coal mines & factories, and it became an useful instrument for fire fighters & policemen. Furthermore, its use becomes so diverse that it can be found even at the public places & many houses preparing for the worst.
Ha Yong Joo explains the reason why he's interested in gas mask like this, " I liked and collected toy figures. Among them, one figure was wearing a gas mask, it looked very stuffy, and I thought it was indulged in its own world." And he judged this situation corresponds to not only that figure but all of us. Gas mask is an instrument to modern person protecting him from disasters, however, every modern person is facing with the harsh reality with his own gas mask wearing. People have relations to other people and reinterpret things with the psychological gas mask wearing. It can be self-defense, and it can represent breaking off and escape from such a reality. In this respect, gas mask is a kind of filter or relief.
In addition, wearing a mask means hiding his face, in other words, anonymity while having the same expressions, in other words, standardization. It's similar that one is born as a member of a society and tamed unavoidably as one member. Just like suppressing his instinct and wearing a mask to hide it.
Many people are riding bicycles wearing gas mask in <13 month>. They are speeding somewhere in the canvas covered with orange color as if it suggests ominous atmosphere. It seems they are running away in despair wearing gas mask owing to the explosion of a nuclear bomb or heading for new grounds hopefully. Like this, despair & hope cross skillfully.
.In the pictures of Ha Yong Ju, there's one outstanding thing along with gas mask, and it's a 'Bomb". The artist says these bombs are the world looked with gas mask wearing. If it's the situation that we have to wear gas mask, it'll be certainly more imminent & urgent than usual. Of course, the impressions to face with the world wearing gas mask are different from persons, however, Ha Yong Joo connected this uneasy emotion with a bomb. contains the shocking reality a lot of bombs are falling into the ground. How will it be if all of these bombs explode? However, let's look out such bombs closely. The size & shape of bombs are different each, and it seems to be toy bombs because bombs are described comically relatively. Though it's a very dangerous thing, there's an escape getting out of own meaning of a bomb. He aims to escape from the rigid interpretation through duplicating the conflicting images intentionally.
A photographer looks at the world through the lens of a camera. He includes things in the lens and meets persons through the lens. Ha Yong Joo looks at the world through his own 'Window' of gas mask. He sees things through such a gas mask, and meets persons through that gas mask. And he intends to communicate with them mutually through continual penetrating into them.
- Ryu Han Seung(Assistant Curator , National Museum of Contemporary Art , Korea)


“I can get rid of all harmful things to me , and I head for with great dignity regardless of the environs. Nobody can gaze at my expressions though I have them. Furthermore, if everybody is so, he'll be able to live in this world without caring about eyes of other persons. ”-An artist's note.-
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