Culture
Vante makes Instagram debut
BTS’s Kim Taehyung (V) shows his artistic talent on Instagram
The Instagram debut of Kim Taehyung — commonly known as V from BTS — broke records, achieving the Guinness World Record for being the fastest individual to reach both one and 10 million followers. However, apart from the wholesomeness of watching seven international superstars struggle at learning how to use the app, perhaps the most exciting part is seeing how they use the platform as a form of self-expression.
On December 21st, V uploaded a new image to his Instagram page: a large painting (presumably in acrylic), entitled “You make me wanna be a better man” [shown above]. It’s vibrant and abstract, contemporary, and a departure from his usual style of simple stylised line drawings.
A known creative, Kim Taehyung uses the name ‘Vante’ for his photography and paintings. However, until this point, many of his public artworks have featured a recurring motif of abstracted facial features in contrasting colours, such as the quick piece created for RunBTS episode 149 “Bangtan Interior Design”, shown to the left. It’s humanoid, but could just as easily be described as simian.
Airing in August 2021, it’s evidently a concept he was thinking about, as it developed into “girl and man”, which was tweeted on October 23rd [below]. This time the features are more evidently humanoid, the use of colours is expanded and explored to create a male/female duality.
The progression from these line drawings to the blocks of colour in “You make me wanna be a better man” perhaps marks a progression in Vante’s artistic journey. Whilst he is known to draw on European and American references such as Botero and Warhol, the new work also sits alongside Korean artists such as Choi Woolga and Suh Yongsun.
The abstraction of the human figure with rough brush strokes is a notable feature of Suh Yongsun’s “People in Mago 1, Walking, 2009–2020”. Born in 1951, his art focuses on human existence and, like Choi Woolga and Vante, is particularly partial to the use of bright and contrasting colours.
Similar to Suh Yongsun’s “People in Mago 1, Walking, 2009–2020”, Vante’s “You make me wanna be a better man” is evidently human, but not realistically so.
Choi Woolga (b. 1955) also uses bright colours and abstraction to portray everyday life, however — unlike Suh Yongsun — primarily uses line drawings rather than block colours.
Choi Woolga’s work “Untitled, 2000” [below, left], captures the visual themes and bright colours of his work. The parallels in colour usage between “Untitled, 2000” and Vante’s “You make me wanna be a better man” are clear.
The title of Vante’s piece — “You make me wanna be a better man” — is likely aimed at BTS’s ARMY, rather than towards one particular person. It could therefore be argued that this work is an expression of gratitude towards their never-ending support that has allowed them to achieve unprecedented worldwide success. Furthermore, given this understanding, I would therefore argue that this is a self-portrait of Taehyung himself.
Overall, it is heartening to see new artworks being produced and will be interesting to see whether this is a one-off piece or part of a new stylistic series.
