Threshold: Moon Kyung Won & Jeon Joon Ho, Max Frisianger, Park Suk Won, Chung Hee Seung, Ju Se Kyun, Jongwoo Ahn
For the first exhibition in 2025, Chapter II is delighted to introduce Threshold, a group exhibition of works by six international and Korean artists—Moon Kyung Won & Jeon Joon Ho, Max Frisianger, Park Suk Won, Chung Hee Seung, Ju Se Kyun and Jongwoo Ahn—from 17th, January to 15th, March in the Yeonnam-dong space, Seoul. The presented works that establish new narratives and provide motives for theoretical discourses based on appearances or symbolic contexts of daily objects overview the realm of potentials where shifts in ways of thinking ignite, defined as Threshold in the exhibition title.
A threshold is universally known as a psychological and conventional borderline dividing a space from another in many different cultural spheres. Its symbolic significance stems from understanding the notional characteristic of thresholds as a neutral territory included in neither one side nor another. A Twilight Zone, where a river and the sea converge, has both traits but exists independently. Guaranteed open access and travel to the two adjoining areas, this independence is anti-dichotomized and lets clearness and ambiguity coexist.
Through the works, be they ready-made, the representation of external appearances of objects or what a camera captures, Threshold first constructs a boundary region where a new perspective developed from presentational interpretation emerges and invites viewers to the place. Thus, it highlights the tension between what is in sight and what it implies to encourage the viewers to carefully look into the narratives or historical facts dormant in the works. Mutation-Relation 7726 (1977, Park Suk Won) and Ursa (2022, Max Frisianger), made of fundamental industrial materials, wood and steel, respectively, represent animal figures with a plain and simplified attitude. In the context of which the motifs of these works are estimated roughly through their titles, being plain can indicate that the level of revealing evident features of the targets of depiction is adjusted to a minimum.
Inertia (2020, Chung Hee Seung) and Nutella (2023, Jongwoo Ahn), whose pop-art tendency stands out, are intriguing examples which show how factual moments of history related to art historical references and icons of pop art have been selected and adopted by artists and how they play a partial role in narratives. The place where the past and present intertwine contextually is a crucial foothold, allowing meaningful interpretation of artworks and dynamic expressions possible.
Notional Flag #6-A (2025, Ju Se Kyun), consisting of tinted sand, graphite and white powder sprinkled attentively on the exhibition floor, looks like assembled emblems of specific nations in a mutual agreement relationship, even though they are made-up flags that do not exist in fact. It metaphorically suggests that numerous norms, definitions and meanings one encounters in an everyday circumstance are inevitable to inhabit in-between substance and concept.
Representing a human torso by manufacturing acrylics and aluminium in an exceptionally elaborate demeanour, Super Lung, Super Mask (2021, Moon Kyung Won & Jeon Joon Ho) creates an uncanny ambience through its title and sophisticated high-tech details. The intricate structure, seemingly having the style of audio-visual material, turns out to be a trigger enhancing a dystopian outlook which depersonalizes human beings despite its figurative source originating from human organs.
