Il Shin Building ’91, 1991

iron and red concrete, 1900x2900x120 cm
Seoul, Korea

“My way of envisaging sculpture in relation to the life of a city and architecture – despite certain unorthodox projects – has, perhaps, classical connotations: I try to set up interactive relations, something extremely difficult to achieve as things stand at the moment. Artists are always expected to work after the architects have finished. […] There are really very few instances of sculptors being commissioned, if not right at the start of the construction of a piece of architecture, as would be most appropriate, then at least during building work, as happened to me with my sculpture for the Il-Shin Building in Seoul. It is most important for a contemporary sculptor to have active, dialoguing and critical relations with architecture. In my work, I try to get the surroundings involved so that the sculpture is inseparable from its setting.”

K. Seung-Duk, Artist of Sculpture: Mauro Staccioli, interview in Space, no. 291, Seoul, December 1991, pp. 61-75.