Opening Reception: April 12th, Wednesday  

Tuesday-Friday 10:30~20:00, Weekend and National holiday 10:30~19:00 / Closed on Monday
DOOSAN Gallery Seoul: 15, Jongno 33-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Korea

Tel. 02-708-5050

DOOSAN Gallery Seoul proudly presents An-Other Column, a special exhibition of the 'Doosan Humanities Theater 2017: Conflict', from April 12th to May 27th, 2017. The human inner world is a whirlpool of boundless worries and conflicting emotions, and the individual sometimes feels isolated within. However, as an individual's emotions break out of the skin and are expressed outwards, the boundaries with others collapse and bonds of connections are formed in the idea of 'us.' An-Other Column questions how we construct solidarity and conflicts within ourselves and with others in the society, by shedding light on both the inside and outside of the metaphorical space of the 'column.'

"The square is the cabinet of the public and the cabinet is the square of the individual. The human being cannot survive when he is confined in one of these two space. When this happens, the blood of riot flows and the roars of rampage erupts from the square. In the square with exploding water fountain and flowers budding in the bright sunlight, adorned with statues of heroes and gods, we wish to partake in the magnificent chorus, as much as we desire the time to forget the square, sitting on the bed with our diary and the forgotten glove of our lover." -Excerpt from <The Square>by In-hun Choi.

I thought that I were you, and that you were me. I thought we were the square and that the square was us. I thought we were one in the square but we were just the individual me and you.

There are seven columns in the exhibition space. Sen Chung's small paintings are shown in the small spaces in each of the two white square columns which seem to have always been there. Coming face to face with the painting in a narrow and confined space just big enough for one person functions as a type of mechanism through which the audience penetrates the world of the artist and confronts the artist's inner world. Sen Chung has been exploring the fundamental meaning of painting for a long time, and capturing such ideas in his paintings. He invites the audience to a conversation which transcends time through the painting, which is both a site of traces of thoughts, as well as a framework of other potential worlds one has yet to experience. In the window space which corresponds to the white rectangular columns in the gallery, Chung's murals and collection of paintings and wooden frames positioned on the outside of the gallery express the artist's private sphere in a more expanded form.

Each of the five columns is of different shapes, and emits different sounds and light, as they wander around the two rectangular columns and encounter the audience. This movement, entitled Square of Memories (2017), is an installation which captures the memories of spaces and places in which the artist Hong Buhm drifts. The personal memories and collective memories collide and integrate, connecting with each other, while keeping distance and forming new relationships. Hong has produced drawings, videos and installation works on his memories of spaces and places. His five moving columns presented in this exhibition stir up feelings of awe, excitement, unfamiliarity and even uncanniness, forming relationships between the audience and the columns, until eventually, the audience, traversing in and out of the columns, becomes yet another column within the gallery.

*Doosan Humanities Theater Series 2017: Conflict

Doosan Humanities Theater Series is an intersecting site of scientific, humanistic and artistic imagination and discourses on mankind and nature. Starting with Big History: From Big Bang to Big Data in 2013 and followed by The Age of Distrust in 2014 and Exception, Mutation, or Abnormality on the Borders in 2015 and New Imagination on the Extended Territory in 2016, Conflict is the theme for Doosan Humanities Theater in 2017. For three months from March to June, scholars in different academic fields, including sociology and liberal arts will be invited to present lectures, performances, film screenings and an exhibition associated with the subject matters.

'Conflict' is productive. New trajectories are formed in tight tension and confrontation. While catastrophic outcomes can result at times, productive and positive effects can usually be expected, or actually hoped, through dynamic processes. Therefore, no matter how difficult the process, one can bear it and move on forward by looking at the light at the end of the tunnel as their hope. Human beings, who can only survive by gaining something from nature, are essentially in discordance with nature. However, through such period of discord, human and nature also had the time to adjust to each other. There is sharp conflict between human beings because we always desire for more and better. However, as the human society always reaches beyond instincts to direct at the cause, it is able to resolve conflict with dignity and move onto new steps. Now, there's more possibility that humans will have conflict with artificial intelligence who might have consciousness soon, but I hope that we will arrive at a new breakthrough in the drama of this conflict. Thus perhaps resolving conflict is not about repressing it but about creating new conditions like two vine trees intertwining to make an even stronger vine. This analogy illustrates the reason for exploration into the subject on 'conflict' for Doosan Humanities Theater in 2017.