Installation view of 《Multipurpose Henry》 © Atelier Hermès

Atelier Hermès presents, as its first exhibition of 2019, the solo exhibition 《Multipurpose Henry》 by Jihyun Jung (b. 1986), an artist whose practice has centered on sculpture and installation. Jung draws into the exhibition space elements keenly observed from the lived environments we inhabit, presenting them as accidental and incomprehensible landscapes.
 
The starting point of Jung’s work lies in the byproducts and waste materials found throughout the corners of the contemporary city, where modern life unfolds. By repeatedly collecting, dismantling, and reassembling fragments of ambiguous origin, Jung disrupts the original order of objects and transforms them according to his own methods.

In a world where everything is uncertain and unclear, the artist relies on the physical reality of “his own hands” to accumulate increasingly unfamiliar and new layers. The exhibition space, presented as a mutable and provisional process, is continuously reconfigured into new landscapes through its encounter with each viewer’s individual perception. In this way, Jung unfolds in the exhibition space a process of seeking a new order (or perhaps chaos) through subversive attempts prompted by the city and spaces of life.
 
The “Henry” referenced in the exhibition title 《Multipurpose Henry》 refers to the renowned British modern sculptor Henry Spencer Moore (1898–1986). The title, quite literally, originates from a certain sentiment toward Henry Moore–like sculptures that appear in various contexts and for multiple purposes, frequently encountered throughout the city. Jung’s inquiries and suspicions begin with numerous public sculptures that, having lost their original intent and purpose, are abandoned and left scattered across urban spaces like byproducts or waste of contemporary society.

These questions reveal differences in how art is perceived and understood, and extend to visualizing the endless disjunction between differing sensibilities, tastes, and beliefs in perceiving contemporary reality. Thus, within the exhibition space, processes unfold—arduous and persistent—of dismantling, collecting, and recombining fragments that do not belong to the “here” and “now,” yet continue to occupy it; fragments that have been rigidly fixed into the present by conventions and institutions, forming a misaligned reality.

Ultimately, 《Multipurpose Henry》 becomes the result of a laborious attempt by the post-digital generation to reconcile with the gap (discrepancy, rupture, discord) between themselves and the preexisting world (systems or institutions), relying on the physical reality of the artist’s own hands. It is also a process of rendering visible what had long remained unseen, concealed beneath a homogenized and familiar surface.

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