New Spring Project presents the externally curated exhibition 《UNBOXING PROJECT 2: Portable Gallery》 from May 10 to June 4, 2023. Following the first project in 2022, 《UNBOXING PROJECT》 returns for its second iteration. The project was initiated from the idea that, rather than the awe inspired by overwhelmingly large works or spectacle, the emotion conveyed by small works can sometimes leave a deeper and longer-lasting impression. Accordingly, the exhibition presents works sized to fit inside small boxes.

The project is named “UNBOXING PROJECT” because the anticipation felt when unboxing, and the sentiments and emotions conveyed through a box, resemble the feelings experienced when encountering artworks in an exhibition. In this way, the exhibition invites viewers to come closer to small-scale works that condense each artist’s artistic world.

This edition unfolds under the theme of the “Portable Gallery,” borrowing from Marcel Duchamp’s La Boîte-en-valise (1935–1966), often described as a “Portable Museum.” Seventeen artists—ranging from major senior and mid-career figures in the Korean art scene to notable emerging artists—were commissioned to produce new works. The exhibition presents 17 “portable miniature galleries” created specifically for this occasion.

Marcel Duchamp expanded the concept of modern art through works such as the readymade Fountain (1917) and L.H.O.O.Q. (1919), an appropriation of the Mona Lisa, and produced numerous replicas. Beginning in 1935, he created La Boîte-en-valise, a “portable museum” consisting of miniature reproductions of his paintings, drawings, objects, and readymades. Reflecting on this series, Duchamp once remarked, “Instead of painting something new, it was much easier and more amusing to gather what I had already done to represent my life.”

Inspired by this sentiment, 《UNBOXING PROJECT 2: Portable Gallery》 asks why Duchamp found it more enjoyable to assemble a collection of precisely reproduced miniatures rather than create something new, and why artists replicate and appropriate their own existing works. Through these questions, the exhibition seeks to trace new trajectories of creation that emerge from such variations and transformations.

For the production of new works, 《UNBOXING PROJECT 2: Portable Gallery》 proposed that participating artists create their own “portable galleries.” Beyond reflecting on their own artistic practices and borrowing or transforming their existing works, artists were also allowed to appropriate works by other artists as a form of homage, thereby creating their own collections. Each artist was asked to produce a personal “portable miniature exhibition.”

Six micro-sized canvases were placed inside a box and delivered to each artist, who then presented and exhibited the box as a kind of “small solo exhibition” or collection composed of six works meaningful to them—a “portable gallery.” These “portable galleries” condense each artist’s practice into a miniature form while simultaneously becoming collections of works that serve as sources of their creative origins and inspirations, ultimately presenting an exhibition space that reflects their artistic practice.

Meanwhile, the exhibition foregrounds the process of delivering artworks through boxes and unboxing them, bringing the physical mobility of art to the forefront of the exhibition process and transforming it into an exhibition concept. It is both a curatorial experiment that questions exhibition systems revealed when presenting diverse artists within a limited framework, and a frame-within-a-frame exhibition structure in which the “portable galleries” curated by artists are themselves curated once again.

The 17 artists’ “portable galleries” are unboxed for display, then repackaged and delivered to collectors, accompanied by the joy of unboxing. 《UNBOXING PROJECT》 will continue as a series of curated exhibitions under different themes, expanding beyond two-dimensional works to include objects and works in various media.

References

• 《언박싱 프로젝트 2: 이동하는 갤러리 (UNBOXING PROJECT 2: Portable Gallery)》