I SAW A RED BIRD FLYING WITHOUT WINGS WHEN YOU LOOKED CLOSER IT WAS A BULLET.
I saw a red bird flying without wings when I looked closer it was a bullet.
First Edition - 40 Pages - 500 Copies
Over a period of four years, Yi collected images of South Korean women celebrities who had committed suicide by hanging. South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world and the quantity of these high profile suicides in such a short time is astounding. She printed the funeral images of their faces on large-scale newsprint papers, and added images of red neckties with different knots. The necktie, of course, is a reference to hanging, but it also points a colonizing and sinister male presence, which sexualizes the images and suggests that other issues might be at stake. She paired the images with a line of poetry - I saw a red bird flying without wings, when I looked closer it was a bullet. - hand stamped in red ink, following through the pages in a slow procession, one word at a time.
Author Yi Yunyi
Texts by Um Insung
Edited by Studio ARABY
Printed by Woori
Published by Arts Council Korea
Chairman, Kwon Youngbin
Published on the occasion of the solo exhibition
Yi Yunyi, “A Round Turn and Two Half-Hitches”
June 20, 2014 - July 18, 2014
Insa Art Space of the Arts Council Korea
89 Changducgung gil, Jongno-gu
Seoul 110-280 Republic of Korea
Tel. 82 (0)2 760 4722
© Yi Yunyi 2014