Installation view of 《The Burning Love Song》 (Atelier Hermès, 2022) ©Sungsil Ryu

Atelier Hermès is hosting 《The Burning Love Song》, a solo exhibition by Sungsil Ryu (b. 1993), the winner of the 19th Hermès Foundation Art Award, from July 29 to October 2, 2022.

As the youngest recipient among previous winners, Ryu has gained attention for her sharp engagement with contemporary cultural phenomena through the production of one-person media content, driven by her unique characters, despite her relatively short career. These characters, often exaggerated to the point of appearing surreal, reinterpret Korea’s consumerist culture as a form of black comedy, starkly revealing the raw face of capitalist reality.

Sungsil Ryu, The Burning Love Song, 2022, Mixed media, Dimension variable ©Sungsil Ryu

The new work The Burning Love Song (2022) highlights the expansion of “Big-King Pet Funeral Services,” initiated by Lee Daewang, the fictional owner of the imaginary travel agency “Big-King Travel” (2019–2020) from Ryu’s previous works, as part of his business diversification. The exhibition space, modeled after conventional funeral homes and crematoria, invites visitors to participate in the death and memorial service of a pet. The entire series of funeral and cremation rituals, condensed into approximately 15 minutes, poignantly illustrates how even death becomes a business commodity for the profit-driven entrepreneur Lee Daewang. Through this, the audience witnesses the origins of a problematic yet heroic figure whose entrepreneurial flair transforms even mortality into a commercial enterprise, hinting at his future transformation and relentless business expansion.

The world constructed by Ryu, featuring characters like “BJ Cherry Jang” and “Lee Daewang,” has been developed into a series that forecasts continuous narrative expansion. Particularly, Lee Daewang, brought to the forefront through The Burning Love Song, can be seen as the doppelgänger of “BJ Cherry Jang.” As a pivotal figure in capitalist dynamics, he manipulates human desires and weaknesses, exploiting anything profitable. Their parallel worlds intersect through the theme of “death,” yet Lee Daewang’s obsession with material wealth reveals itself as a powerful force that trivializes even the solemnity and limits of death itself.

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