[Gallery Walk] Enjoying Art Sonje Center 200% Through the Eyes of Young Artists

'Offsite' Exhibition Until October 8
Utilizing Various Spaces Including Art Hall, Backstage, and Machine Room
Experience Museum Spaces Anew Through Active Viewing

The new perceptions and attitudes of contemporary artists toward reality and virtuality, phenomenon and perception are both fresh and sharp. The sense of space and reality is reconstructed and newly created across eras and generations. The vertically constructed museum architecture and the exhibition halls radiating in quadrants. Their perspectives, utilizing stairs and facilities that connect these spaces, expand to the entire site of the Art Sonje Center, including the interior garden and rooftop garden, reconnecting and separating through sculptural practice and sensibility.

Hyun Jung-yoon, Installation view of 'Feeling You and Feeling Me' (2023). Photo by Hong Cheol-gi. [Courtesy of Art Sonje Center]

The exhibition "Offsite," held at the Art Sonje Center until October 8, highlights the perspectives of six contemporary artists who utilize the interior and exterior spaces of the Art Sonje Center in multifaceted ways. Participating artists Greycod Ji-in, Oh Jong, Lee Yona, Choi Goeun, Hyun Nam, and Hyun Jeongyun use functional spaces of the museum such as the art hall, backstage, dressing room, garden, stairs, machine room, and rooftop as both exhibition venues and materials. They experiment with their own sculptural languages and practices inside and outside the museum building, welcoming audiences.

This exhibition connects to the site-specific exhibition "Ssak," held in 1995 before the construction of the Art Sonje Center museum building, which appropriated the spatial meanings of the existing site. Seventeen artists, including Park Iso, Ahn Kyuchul, Lee Bul, and Choi Jeonghwa, who participated in that exhibition, created works responding to the logic constituting the place. This attempt not only stimulated artists' imaginations about the space that would become a museum but also evoked memories of the place previously used as a residence, triggering new communication and multiple networks beyond the traditional exhibition structure of artist-work-audience.

The history of the Art Sonje Center, which began with "Ssak," expanded into various "off-site" exhibitions conducting sculptural and installation projects in spaces that are not exhibition halls, especially functional spaces. These attempts were continuous inquiries into how the contemporary conditions of time and space, which underlie all acts of sensing, thinking, and communicating, are changing.

Graycode, Ji-in, '+3x10^8m/s, Beyond the Speed of Light〉 and 〈35 to 20,000' overlapped sheet music, 2023. Photo by Hong Cheol-gi. [Photo courtesy of Art Sonje Center]

Hyun Nam occupies the machine room, a space isolated from the outside, by connecting sculptures to pipes and ducts. Lee Yona installs a sculpture functioning like a fountain in the waterfall pond made of stones that have long existed in the museum’s interior garden. Oh Jong replaces the lighting in the stairwell connecting the basement first floor to the third floor with hanging LED sculptures. Choi Goeun transforms industrial pipes hidden inside the building into sculptural forms and brings them out to the rooftop garden. Hyun Jeongyun places sculptures resembling deformed bodies in the art hall’s backstage and dressing room, positioning them like actors before a play begins. Greycod Ji-in presents media works on the opposite art hall stage that evoke the reality of invisible phenomena beyond the universe. Meanwhile, an archive space set up in the basement first-floor corridor allows visitors to view individual materials and interview videos of the artists.

The exhibition also differentiates the way audiences view the works. Visitors unfold a map received at the information desk and explore the museum’s interior and exterior spaces following the guided route, discovering the artists’ works during their exploration. Paths to spaces usually closed to the public, such as the dressing room, backstage, and machine room, may feel somewhat unfamiliar and challenging. At this time, the ‘off-site’ stickers posted throughout the building serve as guides to the artworks. If a sticker is visible nearby, it means you are on the right path to the artwork.

Hyeonnam, Installation view of 'Yeonhwan-gye' (2022). Photo by Hong Cheol-gi. [Courtesy of Art Sonje Center]

For example, to find Hyun Nam’s new work, which is not detailed on the map, one must obtain a hint in the machine room. Titled "Battle of Red Cliffs," referencing the strategy "Chain Link" where Pang Tong led Cao Cao’s camp to chain boats and set fire to them for victory, this work consists of sculptures connected by iron chains, occupying the space by parasitizing the machine room’s structures within a precarious framework. In this space, usually restricted to outsiders, the endlessly circulating pipes and loudly operating machines symbolize a network connected across land, seabed, and space today. This network, pivotal to the global economy, spans finance, communication, logistics, and military domains, acting as a major backdrop for national security issues and international conflicts. Through sculptures linked by chains, the artist visually represents the relationship between technology and power and the network of hollowed-out holes, presenting it to the audience. In this way, "Offsite" proposes that visitors actively explore the Art Sonje Center building, experiencing it anew through their mode of viewing.

The exhibition is free of charge, supported by the Arts Management Support Center.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.