Yeonnam 566-55 Anthology: Roh Choong Hyun, Lee Jee Yang, Kim Ji Eun, Kwon Tae Gyeong, Linda Havenstin
Chapter II is pleased to announce the exhibition, ‘YEONNAM 566-55 ANTHOLOGY’ from 9th February to 25th March, 2017 in Yeonnam-dong, Seoul.
The name of Yeonnam-dong, one of the representative residential areas in western Seoul, is decided by the fact that it is located in the east of Yeonhee-dong during the administrative district reorganization in the mid 70’s. For a long period, Yeonnam-dong had played a role as a bed-town periphery of Hongik University and its residential neighbourhood. However, the advent of Gyeongui Line Trail has led a mass construction of commercial and recreation facilities which the young generation appreciates. Due to this diversion, numerous residential buildings are shifted into commercial spaces or both types of constructions are coexisting at the moment.
YEONNAM 566-55 is an address of Chapter II and also where its sponsor corporation’s office building is currently situated at. Chapter II’s exhibition space was used as a supermarket and a warehouse for medical supplies few years ago. In addition to the modification of the building’s first floor, its surroundings are undergoing a considerable change: small and medium sized single and multiple dwellings are switched to restaurants, cafes and various shops. When Chapter II was established, this exhibition was organized in order to trace the place’s origin. Therefore, the project would follow the trajectory of YEONNAM 566-55 through artworks of the five artists: Roh Choong Hyun, Kim JI Eun, Kwon Tae Gyeong, Lee jee yang, and Linda Havenstein. Besides investigating the specific site’s history, it would also provide an opportunity to reflect upon several circumstances caused by reorganization of the capital, Seoul— growth and decline of mega-cities, a ripple effect of urban revitalization and gentrification— and individual lives’ vestiges related to them.
Roh Choong Hyun’s ‘Room (2009)’ depicts an interior structure of typical commercial buildings which can be easily observed in an ordinary landscape. The artist treats these places as an anonymous and depersonalized character, by applying conventional composition and monotone colours evenly deposited on his picture plane. ‘Emptiness’ dominating the picture conveys the impression in which a certain temporary phenomenon is locked in an eternal state. Hence, it plays a crucial role to evoke an uncanny sensation against universal understandings about a function of buildings within a metropolitan’s mechanism.
Lee Jee Yang’s ‘Tweedledum, Tweedledee and the Vantageloaf (2015 – 2016)’ illustrates a scene that a number of mice are dead in a glue trap manufactured for prevention of epidemics. By referring to dead mice easily found in storages of a city, she metaphorically expresses power dynamics andphenomenological diagrams occurred at a point where two systems collide. In addition, this work of art reminds us that an object’s conventional value and the validity of a presence in a contemporary society are not irrelevant to the status of human utilities.
Kim JI Eun’s ‘Plumbing First (2014 – 2017)’ shows one aspect of a site where a modern urban architecture is newly built and demolished, and alters its purpose in daily life. The long-term buoyancy of a real-estate market and the congestion of cities have decreased a lifespan of buildings which constitute an urban substructure. The national inclination towards a large-scale commercial district and a compact residence style such as flats, consequently encourages this situation. Through the piece, ‘Plumbing First (2014 – 2017)’, the artist realistically describes that architectural structures are also consumed in the same way of how mass production of capitalism is, under the logic of maximizing a functional importance and a business purpose.
Kwon Tae Gyeong’s ‘Declaration(2016)’ is an installation work whose multiple electrical tubes protrude from the white surface of canvas or hang down on the floor. Concerning its appearance, it might be seen as a construction field in progress or a demolished area. Through this manner, the artist attempts to expand and provoke normative examples of paintings. A canvas is often compared to flesh, a structure of a mass and even certain spirits firmly accumulated. In this context, the tubes which penetrate the canvas eventually mingle with their own target for conquest; they operate as a device to convert the work’s state from a flat surface to a three dimension. Along with the silence of the punctured canvas, the artist’s resolute approach for crossing boundaries creates an absurdly tranquil scenery.
Linda Havenstein’s ‘Leveling (2015)’ demonstrates the relationship between subject and object, and patterns of an external stimulus which is an agent involved in this relational setting. In this twenty minutes long video, a woman continuously applies solid-formed cream on her own face. As time passes, her original facial expressions and outlines steadily disappear, and at the end, the face is transformed into a lump covered by dense layers. The artist visualizes how the figure who was a main agent of activities gradually turns into an object with a distorted sense of independence through external influence and intervention. It is intriguing that Havenstein adopts a certain allegory in order to present one section of a major city whose most parts are shifted into a standardized giant showroom from where used to possess a variety of lifestyles, through the logic of capital.
