Legendary Collection – Legendary Faces - K-ARTIST

Legendary Collection – Legendary Faces

2017
Clay, Black Mirror
150 x 150 x 150 cm
About The Work

Dahwan Ghim reflects on relationships in which memories of time and space are shared, and through which individuals become paths for one another. Reflecting this, his work unfolds within spatiotemporal conditions where unfamiliar and unstable meanings are generated, allowing viewers to acquire the latent values within through their own cognitive and bodily experiences.

Ghim’s practice does not culminate in a single, self-contained artwork; rather, it produces meaning through the specific structure of the exhibition and the experiences that occur within it. Through this mode of working—conceived as a kind of sculptural space—the artist activates relationships, sensations, and cognitive experiences that often go unnoticed in everyday life, prompting a careful reconsideration of what constitutes the “human.”

His constructed situations or spaces take the form of a network of uncertain meanings, where reversals of scale, resemblance and difference, falsehoods, and errors are intricately entangled, much like a riddle or a maze. Within this, viewers wander between the familiar and the unfamiliar. As they encounter the works placed by the artist one by one, follow their trajectories, and move alongside others, they come to share time, space, and memory—ultimately experiencing what it means to become paths for one another.

Precisely because it is uncertain, Ghim’s work leads to narratives that can only be reached through detours. The artist invites viewers to lose themselves within the space, to search for their own way, and to share time, space, and memory with others, thereby opening a pathway to reflect on relationships in which we become each other’s way.

Solo Exhibitions (Brief)

Dahwan Ghim had held solo exhibitions including 《Prediction vs. Recollection》 ((together)(together), Seoul, 2024), 《Easy Way》 (413BETA, Seoul, 2023), 《Hello Human?》 (Art Space Pool, Seoul, 2019), and 《Yang-Mal-E-P-T》 (Taste House, Seoul, 2018).

Group Exhibitions (Brief)

Ghim has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including 《Art Spectrum 2024: Dream Screen》 (Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul, 2024), 《Framer》 (Shower, Seoul, 2023), 《Shadowland》 (Amado Art Space, Seoul, 2021), 《No Space, Just a Place: Heterotopia》 (Daelim Museum, Seoul, 2020), 《Your Search, On-Demand Research Service》 (DOOSAN Gallery, Seoul, 2019), 《Genre Allegory - The Sculptural》 (Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, 2018), and 《Seoul Babel》 (Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, 2016).

Residencies (Selected)

Ghim has also been an artist-in-residence at MMCA Residency Goyang (2025) and the Seoul Museum of Art Nanji Artist Residency (2020).

Works of Art

A Sculptural Space Shaped by Time, Memory, and the Body

Originality & Identity

Dahwan Ghim’s work begins with a sculptural inquiry into the relationships and conditions of perception that constitute human life. As seen in his early solo exhibition 《Yang-Mal-E-P-T》(Taste House, 2018), he understands the individual not as a fixed subject but as a structure that can be divided and reassembled. The exhibition, constructed collaboratively by the artist “Dahwan Ghim” and the team “Yangmal2pt,” reflects an attempt to redefine personal identity within expanded relational frameworks, serving as a starting point for examining the “making of the human” from multiple layers.
 
This line of inquiry shifts toward a more introspective dimension in Wash3’s Face vs Scaling(2018), presented at Total Museum. By translating the repetitive act of washing into a sculptural mode of self-diagnosis, the artist imagines processes of subtracting from or amplifying the self. This suggests that sculpture functions not as a representation of external objects, but as a tool for exploring the boundaries that constitute one’s own being.
 
In the solo exhibition 《Hello Human?》(Art Space Pool, 2019), the relationship between “I” and “you” comes to the forefront. In particular, A Friend Who’s Got It(2019) and A Friend of a Friend Who’s Got It induce perceptual misrecognition and misunderstanding, prompting viewers to question their own perception and memory. Here, the exhibition operates not as a device for delivering meaning, but as a field in which different modes of perception intersect and generate relational meaning.
 
Recently, in the group exhibition 《Dream Screen》(Leeum Museum of Art, 2024), the work The Great Clone Plans to Divide the Diary into Three Parts, along with the solo exhibition 《Prediction vs Recollection》(together together, 2024), extends this line of inquiry into the structure of cognition itself. Devices such as clones, prediction, and recollection are presented as frameworks that extend beyond the individual body and memory, as the artist juxtaposes technological systems and ritualistic thinking to question the very ways in which humans understand the world.

Style & Contents

Dahwan Ghim’s work is characterized by using the entire exhibition structure—combining sculpture, installation, text, and devices—as a single medium. Beginning with 《Yang-Mal-E-P-T》, he carefully calibrates physical conditions such as spatial slopes, stride lengths, floor textures, lines of sight, and circulation paths, treating the viewing experience itself as part of the sculptural composition. Each element functions less as an individual artwork and more as a device for generating relationships, actively engaging the viewer’s body.
 
In 《Hello Human?》, this approach becomes more concrete through the use of perceptual devices. In A Friend Who’s Got It, elements such as the Ames Room and camera delay place the viewer’s body within a distorted visual field, while in A Friend of a Friend Who’s Got It, previously existing works are rearranged and left in a state where their functions are suspended. Through this process, sculpture shifts from a completed form to an environment that reveals errors of perception.
 
In subsequent works such as An Exhibition of a Friend Who Doesn’t Exhibit of a Friend Who Exhibits(2019) and Shhh, I’m Perspective(2019), the scale of the exhibition itself is compressed or transformed into a mobile structure. Furthermore, in Sujebi2(Westin Josun Hotel, 2021), the artist produces handheld stones and mobile exhibition spaces, circulating them through processes of lending, retrieving, modifying, and re-lending. This expands the notion of exhibition from a fixed site to a distributable format.
 
In 《Easy Way》(413BETA, 2023), decisions and compromises that inevitably arise in the process of making are directly revealed on the surface of the works. In 《Prediction vs Recollection》, the artist constructs works across the entire spatial framework—floor, walls, and ceiling—while deliberately incorporating errors and falsehoods to delay perception. Through these strategies, form is understood not as a final result but as a trace of processes and judgments.

Topography & Continuity

 
Dahwan Ghim’s work consistently treats the exhibition as a structural system through which relationships between form, perception, and cognition are explored. Beginning with 《Yang-Mal-E-P-T》, where the division and reassembly of the individual are foregrounded, his practice evolves through the perceptual inversions of 《Hello Human?》 and extends into the structures of judgment and memory in 《Easy Way》 and 《Prediction vs Recollection》. This trajectory forms a continuous attempt to transform the exhibition itself into a cognitive apparatus.
 
His work does not remain within a single medium or form but develops organically across sculpture, installation, text, devices, and projects. In particular, the way he designs exhibition experiences, incorporates the viewer’s body into the sculptural field, and delays the fixation of meaning emerges as a distinctive approach within the contemporary exhibition environment.
 
At the same time, his practice has expanded through various major institutions and projects in Korea. His participation in MMCA Residency Goyang and the Seoul Museum of Art Nanji Residency demonstrates how his work continues to evolve within institutional frameworks.
 
Through these processes, Dahwan Ghim reconstructs human cognition and relationships through the medium of the exhibition, simultaneously expanding the boundaries of both sculpture and exhibition-making. Rather than converging into a single formal direction, his practice maintains a flexible structure that transforms according to context and relationships, establishing a distinctive position within the contemporary exhibition landscape.

Works of Art

A Sculptural Space Shaped by Time, Memory, and the Body

Articles

Exhibitions

Activities