hankyoreh

Sculptor Yoo Young-ho stands by a number of “Greetingmen” at gallery Space in Seoul’s Bukchon Hanok Village, which has displayed his work starting on June 22.

Yoo plans to sell 1,000 30-centimeter high aluminum sculptures with the purpose of setting up a 6-meter tall Greetingman in the Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, located exactly on the opposite side of the globe from Seoul.

“Greeting is the most important starting point of human relations. When people greet, their relationship and conversation begins,” said Yoo. “I want to propose a new form of public arts with communication between people starting through greeting.”

Yoo will record the names of those who support the huge Greetingman project on the sculpture’s base. He stressed that it will be an important occasion for confirming the possibility of alternative public art in which artwork commissioners become participants and end users of the project.

Yoo graduated from Seoul National University and studied at Kunstakademie Duesseldorf in Germany.

(Photo and Story by Chung Sang-young)