NOTE FOR AHN(安), GALLERY 175, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA, 2019
Exhibition Note for AHN (安) was a two-person exhibition I organized with Ahn Jaeyoung, which began from the question of whether an individual could escape from being possessed — one of the mysterious symptoms containing elements of superstition from Korea. The exhibition, tracks how images attained from one’s superstitious beliefs relate to mythical and religious images, then recombines and deconstructs them. Under our collaboration lies the hope to contact invisible but clearly existing sensual phenomena, and to together overcome anxieties, interpreting phenomena as the destiny of artist/mediator.
Paying attention to the number of tattoos on Ahn Jaeyoung‘s body (the Chinese character 安, a blue diamond, an arrow, a red-haired Anne, Piglet, Mickey Mouse, and an epitaph of Nikos Kazantzakis), I interpreted each image as a charm to ward off Ahn’s anxieties. I then, researched mythical and religious imagery in order to strengthen the shamanistic narrative. Observing that the number 12 frequently works as important motive in the myths of many different cultures, I set Ahn Jaeyoung‘s birthday, December 12, as a central axis and tried to discover the references to god-related signs from the number 12. Combining the symbolic world of the image, language, color, and numbers from ancient myths from twelve animals that guards tombs, I created a chart for a system of faith and proposed a psychological space for a praying man, just like the secret connotation of the ancient character, 安
NOTE FOR AHN(安), GALLERY 175, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA, 2019
Exhibition Note for AHN (安) was a two-person exhibition I organized with Ahn Jaeyoung, which began from the question of whether an individual could escape from being possessed — one of the mysterious symptoms containing elements of superstition from Korea. The exhibition, tracks how images attained from one’s superstitious beliefs relate to mythical and religious images, then recombines and deconstructs them. Under our collaboration lies the hope to contact invisible but clearly existing sensual phenomena, and to together overcome anxieties, interpreting phenomena as the destiny of artist/mediator.
Paying attention to the number of tattoos on Ahn Jaeyoung‘s body (the Chinese character 安, a blue diamond, an arrow, a red-haired Anne, Piglet, Mickey Mouse, and an epitaph of Nikos Kazantzakis), I interpreted each image as a charm to ward off Ahn’s anxieties. I then, researched mythical and religious imagery in order to strengthen the shamanistic narrative. Observing that the number 12 frequently works as important motive in the myths of many different cultures, I set Ahn Jaeyoung‘s birthday, December 12, as a central axis and tried to discover the references to god-related signs from the number 12. Combining the symbolic world of the image, language, color, and numbers from ancient myths from twelve animals that guards tombs, I created a chart for a system of faith and proposed a psychological space for a praying man, just like the secret connotation of the ancient character, 安
Installation view of Jan van eyck academie openstudios 2021 Still cut, The geometry of the hunter, Single channel video, 2021
The Brain Mixologist curation. Eva Posas
A tale of a tub, Rotterdam,NL, 2021
http://a-tub.org/en/program/the-brain-mixologist
The Taxidermists' waiting room
http://a-tub.org/en/program/taxidermists-
Performance_ August 21, 19:30
September 11, 13:00
September 25, 13:00
The taxidermy is a method of storing animal skins; It is skinned from the carcass of an animal, treated to prevent decay, and stuffed to reproduce the same appearance as when it was alive. The Taxidermists' waiting room aims to reenact the last gesture of a dead animal witnessed/collected through the medium of the body, and then re-cast it with the biodegradable skin from fermented tea leaves as sculptures in order to seal the scattered body into the material. Thus, in the closed room of the exhibition hall, the taxidermist waits for the hybrid body to occur between the body gestures taken, the mannequin imitating the body, and the vegetative skin that stretches, shrinks over time and hardens.
The weekly performance process is transmitted through a monitor connected to the concealed room during the exhibition period, and the room can only be peeped through a narrow hole in the door. Last but not least, the taxidermist attempts a confidential conversation with the audience in the segmented exhibition space through a letter to the deer, rewritten from a novel by Ocean Vuong, On Earth we're briefly gorgeous.
Boram Soh
A letter to my fawn 2021, Excerpt from a novel by Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're briefly gorgeous
The taxidermists' waiting room, performance still cut, A tale of a tub, 2021
