Work Text:
layered drawings of nobuhiro nakanishi
s0ulconnection | b.a.p | ot6 | vague banghim | bang yongguk is an artist and kim himchan is his muse
note: lyrics from behind the sea by panic at the disco | references to nell, 季候
by 邵洵美, nobuhiro nakanishi etc etc etc
It is about maximizing the use of our nerves, memory and sense of touch to the fullest about using our entire body as an organ to perceive.
A daydream spills from my corked head
Sometimes he could feel his bones rubbing against one another – shift of muscles hiding the creaks and strains of wear and tear – a support system for this shapeless soul.
He’d feel the grind of his clavicle against his scapula – joined by three ligaments in the acromioclavicular joint – the stretch and pull that wrench him from stupor, a reminder that posing is beautiful, where the clavicle dips and a bony shoulder rises – an offering to the world shielded by defenselessness.
-
Breaks free of my wooden neck
Himchan poses for a living. He belongs to everyone and no one. He sells his soul for the shoots, the morgue that leaves him cold and naked underneath florescent lights – harsh, cold, biting – parallelism has never been his strong point. He enjoys being beautiful – being special – being envied.
Look mysterious – look adventurous. Himchan can’t help but wonder if the photographer is trying to sound more like Ryan McGinley, but soon shrugs off that thought. It’s not his job to shoot anyways.
-
Left to nod over sleeping waves
Yongguk doesn’t know much about Himchan. Yongguk doesn’t care. Himchan’s just here to pose, an apparent muse for his sculpting commission – Himchan was just dropped off at this dingy studio last Wednesday, dressed in Rick Owens and Givenchy and Jil Sander and Dior Homme from head to toe. Eccentricity at its best – his wealthy patron wanted his newest work be inspired by Kim Himchan.
What is so interesting about Kim Himchan?
-
Like bobbing bait for bathing cod
The first thing Yongguk realizes is that Himchan has a rather deceiving voice – deep and masculine, without any breathy sighs or moans to punctuate – intersperse – his incoherency. Himchan never stops speaking. He speaks of recurring dreams and omens – of a mixture of art criticism and rotten death. Yongguk never knew someone could breathe out words – noxious yet luring – seduction.
Yongguk understands why Himchan could be a sort-of muse. He sees the world in a warped – almost fucked-up – perspective. He sees time, manipulating its threads until Yongguk is tied up in a web of half-forgotten memories and lackadaisical wit. He sprouts paragraphs reminiscent of college art history essays – from both the artist and viewer’s perspective, the art of looking is also about searching for a place into which we can transpose ourselves into – to badly drafted scripts – I would see ideas in dreams. My mind was bursting with ideas.
Himchan somehow heard every thought in the world and echoed fragments of conversation into Yongguk’s ear – drowning into a chasm of hopeless fire escapes.
Everything sounds better with fire under his tongue.
-
Floating flocks of candled swans
Yongguk is an artist – literally. He sculpts with wood, with marble, with plastic, with metal, with acid, with rubber. He loves the texture underneath his tools – the knives making a dull – comforting – grind under every scrape. He loves the feeling of wood giving way to every downward push, seeing each trail bloom underneath the blade – sawdust his magical glitter. He enjoys seeing the acid corroding the metal plates, abstract waves looping and bubbles swimming up, the smooth plate cool to touch. He loves everything to do with sculpting, experiencing the physical transportation of expansion – the fragments of something visible through vapour. Sculpting is the thought and method to perceive the world, representing the joining of body and soul.
Yongguk isn’t too sure where Himchan fits in all of this.
-
Slowly drift across wax ponds
Himchan brought a friend along – Zelo, until ‘Junhong’ slipped from his tongue. Junhong was tall and gangly, a child trapped in a man’s body. The boy moved with an elephant grace – awkwardly delicate – sometimes so beautifully that he took Yongguk’s breath away.
Junhong was like his dead twin in many ways.
-
So our matching legs
Junhong was still a child, despite his height, despite the dead look in his eyes. Junhong was still a boy – legs too long and smiles too wide. Junhong was the kind of child who loved too much, the kind that rarely got attached, but loved without any reservations – faithfully and silently.
Yongguk could see that Junhong loved Himchan so much – so much that he felt it was his responsibility to care for Himchan – who was bordering on suicidal and insanity – that he gave up his chance to go underground to b-boy, to rap, to produce. Zelo gave everything up from Himchan, the mad hyung that pulled him from the jaws of darkness that snapped at his heels and threatened to lunge from the shadows.
Himchan regretted deflating dreams and crashing castles – only when he was intoxicated – from MDMA, from DOB, from LSD, from 2C-B.
Himchan was sane when hovering on the brink of death.
-
Are marching clocks
Yongguk met Youngjae a couple years ago, when he was virtually unknown – when he was desperate to escape anonymity. Youngjae was bitter and cynical, a sort of vagueness that seemed to permeate the very air around him, just like the cigarette that was his very own saving grace.
Youngjae was just nineteen – yet he had seen the world.
-
And we’re all too small
Youngjae was born with diamonds for toys and mansions for shitholes. Exposed to humanity long enough that the world was nothing but pretentious attempts at posing, where everyone was trained to lick at the flames of opulence. Youngjae had something of an affinity with art – not in creating but in channeling.
Youngjae could visualize emotions and decipher meanings behind random strokes and hidden crevices – he was tormented by the despair the creation buried, the numbness it carried, the fondness it conveyed.
Youngjae was cursed with feeling nothing.
-
To talk to God
Two years and six days after their first meeting, Yongguk heard again of Youngjae – who had apparently died. There wasn’t much to say about his death, except that Yongguk sometimes wondered if Youngjae had felt anything the exact moment he slipped into death – if he had felt fear, anger, pain, regret – anything that he was unable to feel on his own.
Sometimes Yongguk hoped that Youngjae felt relief.
-
Yes, we’re all too smart
Himchan was an enigma that Yongguk didn’t want to solve. Himchan stayed at his penthouse for an indefinite period of time – the same period of time that Junhong had hovered over Himchan, waking up in the dead of the night to check on Himchan. To make sure that Himchan did not overdose from some hidden stash of hallucinogens, to make sure that Himchan did not feel like slashing at his wrists after a particularly grueling shoot in attempt to fucking stop feeling like a mannequin, to make sure that Himchan did not pass out in the bathtub trying to drown his tears.
Because god knows how many times he woke up to baby Junhong shaking him awake at two in the morning because Himchan had apparently decided that falling from the fifteenth floor was freedom and the feeling of cold wind and rushing lights staring at asphalt ground was infinitely more beautiful than looking up at the cloudless sky.
-
To talk to God
Jongup was one of Himchan’s many fucked up friends. Beautiful, just like everyone that surrounded Kim Himchan, Jongup was always smiling – not the glowing smile that burst forth from the corner of his eyes – but the kind of smile that shields rotten teeth and swollen tongues.
Jongup had a surprisingly honest passion for dancing and Chris Brown, something that astounded him to no end. The boy was all ribs and bony wrists – he walked as if he was made of glass – easily shattered and fragile. Himchan always wrapped his arms around Jongup, long arms encasing the tiny boy with squinty eyes and broken ankles.
-
Toast the fine folks casting silver crumbs
Yongguk soon learnt that Jongup was anorexic – not surprising with sunken sallow cheeks and protruding cheekbones. Himchan, in his own way, tried to get Jongup to eat, lunch parties ending with wet pillows and afternoon highs. Yongguk could feel the whisper of grinding bones as he held Jongup’s wrist, shifting underneath his fingertips to lift a weary hand. Jongup was apparently ugly as a child.
-
To us from the docks
Himchan had many interesting friends; Yongguk was reminded of the Factory and the Andy Warhol Superstars. Daehyun would have been one of them. Daehyun, with his cock-sucking lips and lifeless doll face, was a porn star – starring in various homoerotic films that ranged from subtle to hardcore. In another lifetime, Yongguk would have been interested in Daehyun – but now there were too many fucking beautiful people around him (because of Kim Himchan) and none could compare to his muse.
His muse. The way they tasted on the tip of his tongue, dripping heavily – my muse.
-
Jinxed things ringing as they leak
Daehyun was, predictably, manipulated into the sex industry by one of his boyfriends. But Daehyun doesn’t mind getting filmed engaging in torrid acts – it’s something he’s lived with since childhood. At least he doesn’t have the stigma of a prostitute – whore – slut – attached, which confounds Yongguk to no end but serves as an explanation to Himchan and baby Junhong. Yongguk doesn’t know what to feel about Daehyun after a self-deprecating smile and a careless shrug of his shoulder – something that Yongguk has associated with Himchan and company, but leaves him strangely heavy, like the weight of the world has sojourned in him.
-
Through tiny cracks in the boardwalk
Ever since Himchan appeared one rainy afternoon, Yongguk’s solitary was often marked by the appearance of unnatural chatter – filled with sporadic bursts of forced laughter and the ringing sound of silence. The silence that sinks to clouds of doubt and misery – the silence that hides cruelty behind beauty – the kind that moths fly to.
As expected, flowers bloom from hypocrisy and the rain is desolate.
-
Scarecrow, now it's time to hatch
Yongguk starts working, put his tools to good use as he gets used to Himchan’s presence. They have grown so comfortable that Himchan is allowed in his studio – Himchan is able to watch him work without Yongguk feeling invaded. Himchan is just like eternal sleep, beautiful but dead – Yongguk feels at ease, like Himchan is spring morning and summer heat and autumn leaves and winter chills. He tells Himchan what he is doing, with the acrylic board, with the setting, with the large panes. He tells Himchan what he is really doing, but Himchan’s face isn’t giving anything away – he only looks at Himchan’s unexpressive face.
Yongguk doesn’t know whether Himchan can really hear what he is saying – or if Himchan is the beautiful parasitic insect.
-
He gets used to Himchan.
-
Himchan disappears as quickly as he comes, and leaves baby Junhong behind.
-
Yongguk wonders if he’ll ever see Himchan again.
-
Junhong is free.
-
Yongguk is free.
-
Yongguk leaves behind unfinished pieces –of wood, of marble, of plastic, of metal, of acid, of rubber.
-
Yongguk produces only one perfect piece – he names it Himchan. Him for strength. Chan for resplendence.
-
Inspired by Kim Himchan, who left me with layered drawings reminiscent of Nobuhiro Nakanishi.