Artists question identity at Art Sonje Center - The Korea Herald

Shows by artists Oh Hein-kuhn and Kang Hyun-seon moving astatine Art Sonje Center successful Seoul punctual visitors to deliberation much profoundly astir identity.

Kang and Oh usage antithetic media. Oh is simply a lensman portion Kang uses integer technology, including virtual reality, which she has employed for the archetypal time. While the artists’ works are rather different, they pb visitors to look some inward and outward -- to deliberation astir who you are and who they are.

On the archetypal and 3rd floors is the accumulation “Left Face” by Oh, successful which helium unveils caller works that research the radical helium met successful the Itaewon vicinity wherever his workplace is located.

The faces and bodies that look successful his photography blur sex lines, possessing some feminine and masculine qualities.

Also connected amusement are works from his photography bid "Portraying Anxiety," which helium began successful 2006. The works absorption connected circumstantial groups of radical successful South Korea specified arsenic middle-aged women, besides known arsenic “ajumma,” oregon soldiers, showing their shared anxiety.

Kang's accumulation “Post Me” takes spot connected the 2nd floor. The media creator often appears successful her ain work, portraying herself arsenic a integer avatar named “Lucy.” An introspection of aggregate self-images and identities, the accumulation raises questions astir the institutions surrounding radical and however they are institutionalized wrong historical, societal and governmental contexts.

In “Garden of Reason,” Kang uses VR exertion for the archetypal time, which begins with pants recovered successful the caller satellite by Captain James Cook and Joseph Banks, an 18th-century botanist who made large contributions to establishing the Kew Gardens successful London, inactive among the largest botanic gardens successful the world.

The spectator is led to acquisition the virtual garden. Lucy appears arsenic a quality of indeterminate sex oregon race. Wearing the VR gadget, a virtual plot unfolds starting with the diary written by Bank. Lucy takes the diary afterward.

“The diary written by Bank successful 1770 contains an imperialist perspective. When I had the artificial quality proceed his journal, it was hard to objectively find who wrote it,” Kang said. The quality Lucy successful the VR exploration appears with greenish tegument and grey hair.

“You volition ne'er cognize who Lucy is,” the creator added.

The exhibitions tally done Jan. 29.

By Park Yuna (yunapark@heraldcorp.com)