Jewyo Rhii, Five Story Tower, 2019-2020 © Jewyo Rhii

Where do artworks go once an exhibition ends? It is a question that rarely crossed my mind despite having seen countless shows. In 2021, the artist Taehun Lee, supported by the Gwangju Cultural Foundation, presented a 5-meter-wide installation at the foundation’s entrance. After just a week he dismantled it and posted the steel frame on a second-hand website for free pickup. An artwork that had shimmered in the light, once stripped of its ornaments, ended up serving as a chicken coop. Is this a fortunate case of art continuing its life—even as scrap metal?

When she was in residence at Yangju City Studio in 2017, the artist Jihea Park worked by sawing wood; when exhibitions ended, she used the very saw that made the work to cut it into pieces and put it out in standard garbage bags. Art once exhibited in a respectable space becomes trash after ten days or so if it finds no collection—in other words, if it doesn’t sell. Even artists selected by national or public museums and cultural foundations as promising talents repeat the cycle of producing and discarding.

Jewyo Rhii, who received the honor of Korea Artist Prize 2019 from the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), was once asked by a younger artist, “Where do you put your works after a show?” When she answered, “I throw them away,” the response came back: “And nothing changes?” Confronted with the reality that even an established senior artist discards her works, the junior sounded despondent; only then did Rhii come to see the wounds borne by artists who cannot keep their works and must dispose of them with their own hands.

On view through July at MMCA Seoul, Rhii’s Five Story Tower (pictured) in the exhibition 《Collection Variable》 embodies such concerns as an open-storage concept, resembling a modular hanger. Each floor of the steel-framed depot stores works by younger artists. It is designed to stack up to five levels but can vary according to ceiling height. Since 2019, the artist has considered the systems of circulation and storage from production to disposal, and has continued the project titled “Love Your Depot.”

Installation view of Jewyo Rhii’s 《LOVE YOUR DEPOT_Gangnam Pavilion》, Suseo-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul © Jewyo Rhii

In her series of projects, Rhii proposes considerate ways of discarding. The authority to decide what survives usually belongs to the market, yet there is no guarantee that what sells is what is good. In the slow-moving art world, how many artists are able to keep their early works until their artistry is recognized? If one thinks about bulky installations, the chances of their surviving approach zero. Hence the aim: to postpone immediate disposal, to publicize the works actively, and to establish a storage system that allows time for considered judgment of value.

The depot project is expanding. Under the name “Gangnam Pavilion,” a storage system installed at Gungmaeul Park in Suseo-dong, Gangnam-gu, houses and displays works by some thirty artists as they meet the public. When I visited recently, the area around the works was overgrown with weeds, and the video installation was not operating. Since 2021 the district office and the cultural foundation have been in charge of management and operation; at this point it is closer to neglect than to storage. Fortunately, there is also good news: around a dozen works have recently found permanent homes.

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