Installation view © Shinhan Gallery

From September 10 to October 25, 2024, Shinhan Gallery hosted 《Correspondences》, part of the “2024 Shinhan Young Artist Festa,” featuring artists Minhwan Ahn, Won Jeong, and Jayoung Hong.

Landscape exists everywhere. The Chinese characters for landscape (風景) divide into “wind” (風) and “sunlight” (景), meaning that anything encountered alongside wind and light may constitute landscape. Nature accepts all living beings beyond human comprehension and allows no friction. Thus, the very concept of landscape is abstract and ambiguous. As “wind” and “light” shift with time and place, people name these phenomena “landscape.”

Yet a closer look reveals that the character 景 is composed of 日 (sun) and 京 (capital/height), denoting sunlight cast down upon tall buildings. Hence, landscape signifies not only the presence of wind and light but also a high vantage point upon which the sun shines, and crucially, the person who beholds it. Landscape exists everywhere, but the concept itself requires human perception and interpretation. Unlike “nature,” which exists independently, landscape emerges from the relationship between humans and nature, through reciprocal and parallel interaction.


Installation view © Shinhan Gallery

The exhibition title “Correspondences” is drawn from Charles Baudelaire’s 1857 poem of the same name, which describes the correspondence between spiritual and material worlds. Nature, representing the material world, is understood symbolically, while human senses engage with it, approaching the spiritual realm through these resonances. The poet’s role, as Baudelaire suggests, is to sense the hidden principles of nature, receive their responses, and translate them into personal narratives. This role parallels that of the artist.

In this exhibition, Ahn, Jeong, and Hong each translate nature into art through their own vocabularies, presenting sculptures, installations, prints, and paintings. Their works contemplate landscapes where sensory impressions of time and space, faint yet tangible, are captured, enabling audiences to envision vast spaces that might otherwise seem intangible or unreal.

Ahn focuses on transitions between two- and three-dimensional forms, showing media in their unfinished states alongside open-ended results. His works reveal fluid transformations where sculpture becomes surface and surface becomes sculpture, opening unseen spaces through gaps and intervals. Jeong turns to things relegated to the margins, observing how remnants and detritus accumulate into islands of resonance. In this exhibition, he presents works incorporating marine debris and reservoir traces that converge into layered landscapes.

Hong studies gardens and traditional play practices as reflections of humanity’s perception of nature. He is also interested in frames, which simultaneously create boundaries and expose them, shaping perception itself. In 《Correspondences》, he presents sculptures with openings that connect inside and outside, guiding viewers toward a more delicate observation of scenery.

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