Point Counter Point: Spatial Counterpoint

A point is formed – like the first brushstroke touching the empty paper, the point of the pen touching the floor plan’s grid, the first click of cursor on screen. Standardized planks of wood are placed on the gallery floor, and as the knot of a strand of wire tied to the ceiling forms a point, the artwork is created out of the relationships springing from it. The points connect into a line that transects the space; lines combine in layers to yield volume and form. As we zoom out from these connected points, they become interpreted as positions. The positions respond to the space, to other neighboring works, to works with differing layers – and most of all to the viewer taking in the work.

The work of the five artists in Point Counter Point – Donghee Kim, Minae Kim, Jong Oh, Soosung Lee, and Goeun Choi – uses the spatial form and context of Art Sonje Center’s second and third floor galleries as its material and starting point. Each shows a different artistic exploration, rooted in his or her own perspective in response to the space: reacting to the gallery’s shapes, using architectural components and materials as points of reference, or altering viewpoint, distance, and size to subvert perceptions of space.

Space is a basic condition for works of sculpture, which possess form and mass. It is like air for the medium, and so the attention to it may seem obvious. In galleries where the “white cube” has become a norm, sculpture’s descent from the pedestal has long made space into an element of the work’s content and form rather than its backdrop. Yet in the work of artists in their thirties who are active today, we find attempts to expand the relationship between art and space to more of a macroscopic level. By inviting artists who have actively interpreted and responded to space in their recent sculpture and installation pieces, the exhibition shows the perspectives they have adopted in interrogating the relationship between space and art and experimenting with it in new ways. Its focus goes beyond the harmony formed between the work and its setting to examine what issues the work raises for the space, how the context of externally invisible space is employed, how specific sites determine the form and character of sculptures and installations, and, conversely, how works of sculpture and installation alter the form and character of a space. For the most part, the work derived from these perspectives employs interior and exterior architectural materials such as wood and glass, its form situated somewhere between artwork, architectural component, and functional object. No events eternal to the space are suggested; there is no concrete representation of objects through which stories might emerge. There are only serene minimal forms, the exclusion of added narrative only serving to underscore the artists’ attitudes in response to space.

As materials for the artists’ work, Art Sonje Center’s second and third floor galleries have been provided. The two galleries have quarter-circle structures, each with a floor area of around 450 square meters. Created to match the shape of the land when the center was designed, they became emblems of the center, serving in its logo until 2015. Another feature of the setting can be found in the cylindrical columns exposed along the curves of the gallery’s interiors; these curves and columns have been taken into account in all of the many exhibitions staged here over the twenty years since the center’s opening in 1998. What determines the space’s character is not merely this shape, but also the spatial context of an art center and the memories of past exhibitions. The layers of experience from all of those exhibitions appearing and disappearing, and the lingering memories of spatial experience for the individual artists, serve as underpinnings for the individual pieces.

The exhibition title Point Counter Point references the idea of “contrary points” (notes), which provides the origin for the musical term “counterpoint,” or the juxtaposition of two or more independent melodies. The term was adopted to describe the experience of reading an exhibition as the juxtaposition of independent melodies through structural explanations yielded by different possible relationships of response. As with counterpoint in music, the processes of mutual reference, repetition, and development emerging between artwork and space, between one artwork and another, and between different layers usher the exhibition into a structure of tension and rhythm.

About the Works

Minae Kim, Vanishing Point (2018), Black, Pink Balls (2018) 

Minae Kim interrogates the elements that define art and exhibitions, using sculptures and installation within the context of architectural space to find the loci where these questions clash with art and exhibitions. Her Vanishing Point re-introduces the semi-transparent temporary structures used by the artist in her past work. In her 2014 solo exhibition Black, Pink Balls (Doosan Gallery) and 2017 exhibition O philoi, oudeis philos (Atelier Hermès), these served as structures responding to the given environment and conditions: re-establishing a cubic space within the gallery in 2014, creating a labyrinth in 2017. Here, they reflect the most salient spatial characteristics of Art Sonje Center – yet without their function, they become submerged as a low fence and a line. At the same time, they harbor dreams of recovery as sculpture.

Jong Oh,  Room Drawing (Monochrome) #4 (2018)

Jong Oh’s work Room Drawing (Monochrome) #4 is an example of drawing in space, using metal rods, thread, thin chains and plexiglas as its chief materials. Oh’s approach to work is a meticulous, risky one that involves taking a space over a long period of time and highlighting the small but characteristic elements discovered within it. Crafted from thin materials, his installations are not readily visible at a distance, but become revealed in their concreteness as the viewer approaches them, while spaces are created from the inclusion of hollow external masses divided by lines.

Soosung Lee, Untitled (Quarter Pipe) (2018) (2018)

As an artist, Soosung Lee has created sculpture and installation work rooted in the situations and conditions he encounters in his work. Included in the conditions here are the physical shape of the space where the work is presented, the history of the exhibition space, its social meaning, and the labor and production costs expended for the artwork. For Untitled (quarter pipe), he has designed sculptures that turn the gallery into a cube. Opting for a work of sculpture in which puzzle pieces seem to come together as they join along the gallery’s contours, Lee presents a model variedly scaled to suit the setting. Situated on the gallery’s second floor, the sculptures are repeated once again on the third. As the remaining sculpture is added, the artist’s design turns the center’s building into a cubic figure – or a new sculpture in its own right.

Donghee Kim, Volume: Type 1, 2 (2018)

Donghee Kim’s work involves referencing and inventing new uses for the architectural elements of space. For his solo exhibition 3 Volumes (Audio Visual Pavilion, 2017), he created volume by overlaying diagrams for three spaces as a means of shaping space. The latest exhibition utilizes the same methodology: establishing a particular layer in space and then adding volume to it. Volume: Type 1, 2 is installed at the entrance of the second floor gallery and along the curves of the third floor. The second floor uses the landscapes and light that enter through the glass, referencing the composition of a typical lobby. On the third floor, the installation internalizes the gallery’s skylight, where light enters along the building’s curving contours. Both works use windows to bring outer landscapes and light inside, assigns purpose and function to the pieces. Referencing a building interior for the second floor and exterior for the third, the artist forms a relationship of mutual response.

Goeun Choi,  White Home Wall (2018)

Goeun Choi cuts into the exteriors of refrigerators, air conditioners, and other appliances to provide material for her sculpture. Over time, such appliances become naturally discolored. For Choi, the differing coloration between front and back and the characteristic sizes for product models and specifications serve as conditions, positioned in various ways according to the spatial environment. With White Home Wall (2018), sliced sections of air conditioners are arrayed according to specific rules, providing new lines and planes to partition the exhibition space. Once used in the home, these objects have lost their function; here, they are repurposed into materials for an abstract canvas bearing plane shape and unique coloration.

Two performances are also to be held in conjunction with the exhibition. Taking place at 5 pm on Saturday, March 17, Hankil Ryu’s SocioFrequency: [-1(1)] focuses on the ways in which the act of listening becomes tied to experiences and perceptions of time and space. In so doing, it questions whether the experience and contemplation of time and space might be enriched if the composition of given sounds is made clear and its movements can be understood. At 5 pm on Saturday, April 7, ByungJun Kwon’s Between the Floors will provide a new three-dimensional configuration of the sounds corresponding to the first story in the two-story gallery space, employing pre-prepared sounds on the other story and a 16-speaker 3D Ambisonic system. Both pieces are sound performances that explore new reverberations of sound and space in response to the spatial-artistic relationships attempted in the exhibition.

Artists
Donghee Kim (b. 1986)

Donghee Kim is currently based in Seoul. Through a performative approach, Kim copes with and reacts to the changes in surrounding conditions. His recent projects explore different spaces and initiate within them unspecific events. The focus of these temporary spaces is to provide a starting point for the events which eventually connect with one another. He organized many temporary-drifting spaces, including Free Home Project (2011–2014), Class 3 Year 6 (2012), House of Dispersed Layers (2014), Opera Coast (2015–2016), 23F (2016), Aciba Vision (2016), and West Warehouse (2016). His most recent solo exhibition was held at Audio Visual Pavilion, titled 3 Volumes (2017).

Minae Kim (b. 1981)
Minae Kim expands her autobiographical stories into the outer space and the society by shaping them into sculptures and installations. She further questions contradictions and absurdities experienced around institutions and the given surroundings. Born in 1981, Seoul, Kim studied sculpture in her colleges. Her solo exhibitions include Conditional Drawings, Doosan Gallery, New York (2015); Black, Pink Balls, Doosan Gallery, Seoul (2014); Thoughts on Habit, Hada Contemporary, London (2013); Anonymous Scenes, Kwanhoon Gallery, Seoul (2008). She currently lives and works in Seoul.

Jong Oh (b. 1981)
Through manipulations of simple materials Jong Oh create site-specific artworks that lead to philosophical ponderings of the physical space we occupy. String, dowels, metal rods, fishing wire and graphite lines are arranged in fragile compositions. Gravity, light, and shadows are essential components. Every aspect is of consequence, and question the limits of our perception. Jong Oh received his BFA in Sculpture from Hongik University (Seoul) and MFA in School of Visual Arts (New York). He had solo shows at Marc Straus (New York), Jochen Hempel (Berlin), Marso (Mexico City) and Sabrina Amrani (Madrid). His works has also been included in group shows at BRIC (New York), Gallery Factory (Seoul), Korean Cultural Center (Washington DC) and Doosan Gallery (New York).

Soosung Lee (b. 1985)
Soosung Lee was born in Sungnam, 1985. He works in Seoul with installation and sculpture. Lee had his solo exhibition, Bachelor Party (Audio Visual Pavilion, 2014) and participated in many group exhibitions including 8 Works, Collections of the Artists (Audio Visual Pavilion, 2017), Afterpiece (Insa Art Center, 2015), Random Access (Nam June Paik Art Center, 2015), 4th Anyang Public Art Project (Anyang, 2013), Lee Sang X Duchamp (Museum of Korean Modern Literature, 2013), Tireless Refrain (Nam June Paik Art Center, 2013), Fiction Work (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, 2012). He also works as an exhibition designer, BUUP, since 2013.

Goeun Choi (b. 1985)
Goeun Choi studied Sculpture at Seoul National University for her Bachelor’s and Master’s programs. Choi had her solo exhibition Torso at Kim Chong Yung Museum in 2016 and participated in group exhibitions including The Second (ONE & J. +1, 2018), 25.7 (Northern Seoul Museum of Art, 2017), LOTUS LAND (Asia Culture Center, 2017), Things: Sculptural Practice (Doosan Gallery Seoul, 2017) and Silky Navy Skin (Insa Art Space, 2016).

▶Performances

Hankil Ryu, SocioFrequency : [-1(1)]
17 March 2018, Sat, 5pm
Art Sonje Center 2F, 3F

ByungJun Kwon, Between the Floors
7 April 2018, Sat, 5pm
Art Sonje Center 2F, 3F

*No reservation is needed.