Installation view of 《2023 Anti-Freeze》 © Hapjungjigu

Since opening in 2015, Hapjungjigu has consistently introduced emerging artists. Last year, seeking to engage with artists working across more diverse fields and regions, it launched an open call for 《2023 Anti-Freeze》. A total of 167 applicants responded. Following evaluations by the Hapjungjigu team and external jurors, three artists—Sangha Khym, Yooja Kim, and Ho Heo—were selected.

The artists participated in two rounds of mentoring and a writing workshop, and based on these experiences, they present new works in this exhibition.

At the moment we encounter the title A cat, we understand that a cat existed somewhere—and that we will never see it again. Yooja Kim confronts an unintentional “erasure” and reflects on the desire to see something, much as one searches for a missing cat. For the artist, this resonates with longing to meet someone, or with drawing and remembering someone who is no longer present. She recalls the warmth and weight of a small bird as she buried it, hoping it would have good dreams, and imagining the person who might dream them. Cusp arrived unexpectedly in Kim’s life, yet she welcomes the “collision” with openness.


Installation view of 《2023 Anti-Freeze》 © Hapjungjigu

Ho Heo has long foregrounded the bodies of gay men through close observation of gay culture. In this exhibition, however, the bodies he presents appear blurred. Bodies that fall into one another in an instant are just as quickly objectified by someone who openly displays their own body and casts a gaze. The secret exchanges that may have passed between them evaporate, leaving only masses—bodies—as residue.

The three standing figures do not reveal their faces to us; all are misaligned, looking elsewhere. A figure suspended on the staircase leading to the underground gallery appears precarious, yet still yearns for the other. While continuing to depict the body—a familiar subject in his practice—Ho Heo here reveals a sense of doubt and emptiness toward relationships that are reduced to bodies alone.

Sangha Khym looks back on someone’s life, contemplating the gap between time and events she cannot experience and the present. She captures moments that quietly reveal the time a person has lived through—old photographs, hands opening them, notes stained by water—yet she does not attempt to calmly record or organize that life. Instead, she gathers landscapes while imagining a time that she cannot even begin to measure.


Installation view of 《2023 Anti-Freeze》 © Hapjungjigu

The exhibition title ‘Anti-Freeze’ was borrowed from a web-based exhibition of emerging artists held in 2018. The project was conceived with the hope that artists who speak in their own voices—at a time when it is easy to be swept up by dominant discourses and trends—would continue moving forward.

Five years later, the art world has changed significantly, yet certain conditions remain. A handful of themes spread like trends, surface as works or curated exhibitions without being fully digested, and are quickly discarded. Some art practitioners aggressively carve out their positions, only to suddenly disappear.

Sangha Khym, Yooja Kim, and Ho Heo move at their own pace—even if they waver at times—within an art world that shifts relentlessly without pause. We invite you to welcome the beginning of these three artists, who will not freeze.


1 《Graduation Exhibition》(2017), 《A Certain Eve》(2017), 《Anti-Freeze》(2018), 《God of the Microcosm》(2019), 《Sofa and Window》(2022)

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