Installation view © Atelier Hermès

Atelier Hermès presents 《Burrowing at the Bottom of a Rainbow》, a solo exhibition by emerging sculptor Hyun Nahm (b. 1990), on view from July 23 to October 3, 2021.

In an era where new sculptural propositions are rare and their significance often diluted, Nahm’s works resurrect the waning legacy of sculpture with unprecedentedly unfamiliar forms and striking colors. His practice, which captivates viewers with a distinct aesthetic, emerges from wandering through and observing the “junkspaces” of contemporaneity—spaces left behind by modernization—where he discovers a certain vitality within chaos. Employing materials like polystyrene, cement, and epoxy—substances analogous to the skin and substructure of urban architecture—Nahm constructs sculptural terrains that reflect the present and future of the city.

By simultaneously deconstructing and reorganizing the heritage of sculpture, Nahm performs a kind of “excavation,” yielding new assets or outcomes. His process involves drilling cavities into polystyrene, pouring other materials into these voids, allowing them to harden, and finally melting away the polystyrene mold. The result is a negative casting of unpredictable internal spaces, a sculptural method that also embraces the random deformations caused by chemical reactions. These works are ultimately displayed upside-down, transforming gravity-pulled forms into ascending vertical structures—spires and urban towers.


Installation view © Atelier Hermès

Nahm’s Atog (2021), which alludes to Kazimir Malevich’s Architekton Gota (1923), evokes a temporal inversion, as implied by the reversed spelling of “Gota.” While referencing the cubic forms that symbolized futuristic architecture in early Western modernism, Nahm contrasts this vision with that of a darker future—far from the sleek, white abstraction imagined by Russian Suprematists. His pieces, marked by rough textures left by escaping air bubbles and glowing, fluorescent hues, resemble the ruins of vertical structures from a dystopian sci-fi landscape.

The notion of “excavation” extends beyond sculptural technique to conceptual acts of roaming through reality, discovering vertical structures that visually resemble sculptures. Nahm considers telecommunications base stations—ubiquitous yet often overlooked—as contemporary spires. These grotesque forms, incompatible with their high-tech function of wireless communication, highlight the dissonance between form and function. Observing such structures becomes a way to acknowledge the physical embodiment of the otherwise invisible internet, a gesture that reverses the gaze of surveillance.

Nahm’s commitment to sculpting landscapes suggests that even small objects placed on a plinth can reveal the vast outer edges of the world. This spatial imagination is not rooted in representation, but in discovery—a state achievable through the traditional East Asian concept of chukgyeong (縮景), or “compressed scenery,” as seen in suiseki, bonsai, or miniature rock gardens. Just as weathered fragments of nature can conjure grand vistas, Nahm’s tangled sculptures—formed through the chemical bonding of diverse materials—imply post-apocalyptic landscapes. For Nahm, who has also participated in experimental sound performance using circuit-generated noise, the interplay of matter, bricolage, chance, and new formations functions both as a mode of perception and an artistic methodology.

 
Photography by Sangtae Kim © Fondation d’entreprise Hermès

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