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
The rapt of Proserpina,Joseph-Marie Vien, 1767, Musée de Grenoble
Installation view at 698-9 Seonosong-dong, Jeonju
( February 21 - March 06, 2020), as part of Print/Out,
Photo by Minkyoung Choi
Installation view of Jan van eyck academie openstudios 2021 Still cut, The geometry of the hunter, Single channel video, 2021
He vs. It
December 1–22, 2024
Art these days, Seoul, KR 2024
The exhibition He vs. It shares its title with the 2017 solo exhibition, which documented deer and other animals killed by road traffic. The title emerged from Soh’s struggle over how to refer to the bodies of dead animals: how should they be named between “he,” a personal pronoun, and “it,” a demonstrative pronoun? Expanding this uneasy relationship between humans and animals into the broader context of Korean society through newspaper research spanning from the 1960s to the present, the exhibition examines animals that are not intimate enough to be called “he,” yet whose designation as “it” produces a sense of discomfort. Within an ongoing study of microbial fermentation materials that constitute part of both human and animal bodies, the exhibition reconsiders the hierarchical order and structures embedded in the distinction between “he” and “it.”
The exhibition interweaves Smart Skin Farm, a 2023 project addressing the problems of industrial livestock farming, with video works produced at different points in time, research materials, drawings, and collages. It transforms the exhibition space into a site where skin is custom-processed and exchanged through a combination of collected personal data and the characteristics of plant-based microbial matter. The exhibition also documents and preserves the growth of “hybrid species”—microbial bodies that consume tea and sugar infused with human birth data and color preferences, expanding their bodies to a macroscopic scale. Through this process, the exhibition proposes remembering animals not as infinitely exploitable material resources or objects of extraction, but as beings with their own distinct histories.
He vs. It
November 1–21, 2017
Myeongsan Inn, Jeonju, KR
Naming is a privilege exclusive to humans and one of the fundamental ways in which we establish relationships with the world around us. Does naming an animal place humans in a position of superiority over animals? After witnessing animals killed in road accidents and looking into the eyes of animals confronting death, I sought to question my relationship to animal death and the hierarchy of death itself. The exhibition venue, Myeongsan Inn, consisted of a narrow, elongated corridor, six rooms, and an outdoor space of approximately 26㎡. Its architectural structure and the absence of electricity were presented as conditions through which visitors could experience the state of a dead animal. Upon entering the first room of the inn, visitors borrowed flashlights and explored inscriptions installed throughout the dark corridor and rooms. The flashlight functioned both as a light illuminating records of roadkill and as a metaphor for automobile headlights. Through biblical passages placed throughout the space, I traced the ways in which humans have named and described animals. Animal masks suspended in midair were installed at the exit of the exhibition, inviting visitors to enact the act of becoming an animal.
Photo. Jung Jung-ho