Poster image of 《Three Shades》 © SPACE SO

SPACE SO presents Lee Byungho’s solo exhibition 《Three Shades》 from September 17 to October 25. This is Lee’s second solo exhibition at SPACE SO, presenting new works from 2020 in his 'Anthropometry' series, which was first introduced in his 2017 solo exhibition 《Anthropometry》 and has since been continuously developed and presented through various exhibitions.

Lee Byungho sculpts “emptiness (空)” and “empty substance.” He reflects on entities that cannot be perceived or seen, on forms of existence at an immaterial level, and presents them through the classical sculptural format of the human figure. Conventional figurative sculpture, with its clearly defined contours and surfaces, weight and gravity, and its representation of concrete subjects, generally allows for a narrative reading; before Lee’s works, however, such a reading becomes impossible.

The silicone sculpture series that Lee began in 2006 creates the illusion of encountering marble sculpture through its realistic rendering and material qualities. Yet as the air inside the shell gradually escapes, the works reveal the empty realm behind their smooth, thin yet clearly defined contours—the form of something that exists despite being invisible.

If the silicone sculpture series, which references classical formats such as busts, reclining figures, and portrait sculpture, revealed invisible presences by transforming the surface, the subsequent 'Anthropometry' series moves further by referring to various works from the history of sculpture while dismantling their surfaces and contours, allowing latent movements and forms of existence hidden beneath those contours to emerge.

To achieve this, the artist makes multiple copies of a single prototype, dismantles its contours and surfaces to expose the interior, and then turns that interior into a new surface. Through disassembly and reassembly, he creates movement; earlier 'Anthropometry' works undergo further processes of fragmentation and recombination, encountering surfaces that existed at different points in time to form new surfaces and continually transform.

The sculptures presented in the exhibition are not shown as “final,” completed works, but as “temporarily completed” states paused along the way toward indeterminate transformations whose endpoints remain unknown. There is no way of knowing what forms the works in this exhibition will subsequently take or in what other times and places they will appear.

One of the major works in the exhibition, Following Adam’s Pose, combines works from three different periods. A section that was transformed into a different form and exhibited as a “temporarily completed” work in four exhibitions between 2016 and 2019 serves as the supporting structure at the bottom.

One of the 'Anthropometry' works from 2019 was then dismantled and augmented until its original form became almost unrecognizable, and connected to a colored 'Anthropometry' work from 2020 to form a single sculpture. It is impossible to know whether the current form of Following Adam’s Pose encountered by viewers in this exhibition will later be divided and recombined into works with different titles, or whether another 'Anthropometry' work will be attached to it and result in yet another work under a new title.

Another defining feature of Lee Byungho’s 'Anthropometry' series is its reference to various works from the history of sculpture. In particular, the prototypes underlying the two central works in this exhibition follow the pose of Rodin’s Adam, repeatedly appearing through processes of variation and transformation.

Just as the figures of Adam that served as references for these works recur throughout Rodin’s oeuvre and were combined to form The Three Shades, Lee’s own 'Anthropometry'-Adams, “following Adam’s pose,” become Following Adam’s Pose and The Two Shades, together completing the exhibition 《Three Shades》.

References