Reflecting On Lenses

May 2003, Julie Hwang

I’ve been collecting eyeglasses since I started wearing them myself. It was just a hobby of mine, but now I’ve collected hundreds of eyeglasses in the past 30 years. Yet at the time, I never knew that it could also be a part of my work.

When I traveled to Poland in 1991, I visited the Auschwitz concentration camp. At the camp, I saw a huge pile of used eyeglasses owned by the Jews who had suffered there, and I utterly shocked. I felt it to be the saddest reflection of art I had ever seen in all my life. In Auschwitz, the Nazis chose to foremost confiscate the glasses. They seemed to have believed that Jews didn’t have the need to see the outside world clearly. It was not only about robbing the Jews of their right to see, but also of their humanity and pride as a human being.

After my visit to Auschwitz, I saw a connection between the piles of eyeglasses owned by the Jews with my own collection of eyeglasses. I wanted to expand that vision, that concept through the eyeglasses of our times. My desire was to make a new concept of the human eye and eyeglasses.

Some of the hundreds of eyeglasses I have collected are mine, from when I was in my teens, 20’, 30’ and 40’. Others belonged to my grandparents, friends and relatives. When my grandmother passed away, I discovered ten pairs of eyeglasses, which she had worn during her lifetime. Everybody leaves eyeglasses just like any other personal possession when they die. Certain eyeglasses I have collected are from anonymous people of whom I do not know. A few of them are very old and expensive glasses from designers such as Christian Dior, Chanel, Nina Rich and others like it. They represent eye fashion of our century. Some were moderately priced or otherwise very cheap. Regardless of the price tag, I feel eyeglasses and sunglasses themselves represent their material value and therefore different lifestyles and social status of the owners.

I’ve been drawing on eyeglasses since my visit to Auschwitz in 1991. I think the human eyesight is imperative to each and every human being. For, with poor vision cannot see clearly without eyeglasses, and everybody’s eyesights differ from one another. For instance, we cannot wear another person’s glasses. Even people with perfect vision wear sunglasses in the summer time, when the sun’s glare is the strongest and most visible. Also, when somebody wears sunglasses, we cannot see his or her eyes. It can be an act of “hiding”. Sunglasses can allow people to be anonymous, something for people who do not want to reveal themselves to others. Wearing sunglasses is one of today’ life styles, in order to make oneself unknown.

Whenever I draw on a pair of eyeglasses, the lenses of the eyeglasses, whether they are round or square, become a kind of space in itself. I believe the world can be seen as a square or a circle, just as the lenses of a pair of eyeglasses can.

I express today’s human condition and our every urban life on each lens of the eyeglasses, as if each drawing was a snap shot of life. I’d not only like to criticize our century, but also personally reflect and meditate the times that will never return again.