Exhibition view of Hyunseon Kang’s solo exhibition “Post-Me” at Art Sonje Center, Seoul. (December 8, 2022 – January 29, 2023). Photo by Aproject Company.Art Sonje Center presents Hyunseon Kang’s solo exhibition “Post-Me” on view through January 29, 2023.
Hyunseon Kang works with new media installations and videos to create architectural and psychological spaces. In a total of six works on the 2nd floor of the center, the character of the artist and “Lucy,” an alter ego with multiple identities, repeatedly appear throughout the exhibition. Each character explores a specific time and space. Therefore, the artist’s character is not merely a substitute for the artist but rather an anonymous being, and Lucy is also designed to examine the identity, subjectivity, and consciousness of the self.
We have multiple identities in the contemporary world. Hyunseon Kang has been studying the meaning of multiple identities and self-images by questioning the systems that comprise our society and the criteria that define them. To delve into this question, the artist invited and collaborated with other experts in the process of creating works and organizing the exhibition to ask questions about the future of contemporary art production.
The artist invited two curators to create the artwork, utilized a title generated by artificial intelligence, as well as incorporated images also created by artificial intelligence. In this way, the artist questions what constitutes art and how to make something that transcends “I,” “us,” and “art.” The exhibition’s title reflects the artist’s concerns about these issues. “Post” is meant to transcend; thus, the artist hopes the exhibition becomes an opportunity to go beyond “me.”
Among the exhibited works, Tangerine Dream Museum explores the possibility of an alternative museum. Lucy, who guides the museum, plays the pseudo-identity of curator Juhyun Cho. Lucy, who became the founder and curator of the museum, introduces the historical background of the museum and its unique ecosystem related to the Jeju natural forest Gotjawal, located on the opposite side of the Western imperialist botanical classification. The artwork imagines an alternative museum that interacts with the natural ecosystem through “action” rather than “possession.”
Another work, Garden of Reason (2022), composed of VR and two-channel video, presents a virtual garden. The story begins with Captain James Cook and Joseph Banks discovering plants in the New World. Audience members are invited to explore these plant species, which evolve into new types of species created by artificial intelligence according to the conversion entered by the artist. The work encourages the audience to reconsider the various concepts that accompany the institutionalization of a particular subject.
Artist Hyunseon Kang (b. 1978) works on expressing the influence of online and offline, virtual and real spaces on individuals, society, and institutions in various ways. Kang has held numerous solo exhibitions at institutions, including Studio Concrete (Seoul, 2017), KAIST Research & Art Gallery (Seoul, 2014), and Motor Gallery (Lisbon, 2012), and participated in group exhibitions held at the Gwangju Design Biennale, Ilmin Museum of Art, Wooyang Museum of Art, and Mimesis Art Museum.
