Exhibition Information

Installation view of #23 at GALLERY YOHO, 2021

Installation view of #23 at GALLERY YOHO, 2021

Installation view of #23 at GALLERY YOHO, 2021

2020 247 x 264 x 65 cm

			Existence has always been a timeless topic of great discussion. What aesthetic experience does speculation of what has been taken for granted or changing our perception provide? Dahoon Nam is an artist who overturns general perceptions and senses through transcription. For Nam, reasoning and perceptive behavior are more important prerequisites for creation than pictorial composition. The artist disintegrates existential values and object meaning through his works in order to find ways for the act of ‘perceiving’ to become a question and to transform it into art.

Nam’s works relate to disintegrating specific reasons why certain objects and scenes encountered in everyday life exist and turning them into mostly vague elements. The appearance of the world visible to the artist becomes the source and material of his artworks. His transcription, which contains the futility of persistence, symbolizes the lethargy experienced by the millennials beyond merely portraying the appearance, while recording the process of accepting the phenomenon. These processes become part of his artworks.

The solo exhibition of Dahoon Nam 《#23》 narrates through ‘traces of traveling’—life in the current pandemic with restricted freedom to roam. His works, which embody the objects and scenes we may come across while traveling, focus on somewhere between familiar and unfamiliar, and narrate memories rather than objects. The works of Nam which ambiguously portray the reality ask the audience how to perceive and judge objects. In Cafe 1, the artworks covering coincidental elements that can be found during traveling will be presented. The artworks which appear realistic will appeal to the audience as unrealistic sceneries, illustrating the artist’s unique artistic identity that wavers flexibly at the boundary between creation and destruction and between original and derivative.

In the gallery, the artist’s works will be exhibited, representing his extraordinary artistic language expressed through the transcription based on repeated observations and examinations of a space. The records of a guest house on the third floor of 125 Donggyo-ro before it was converted to a gallery will become a unique piece of artwork embracing the memories of the object through the artist. The artistic value will be displayed through topographical features. The gallery, which will help the audience feel as though they are visiting the actual guest house, creates a surreal atmosphere through Nam’s artworks which are completed with a simplified structure and based on his own aesthetic standards. Dahoon Nam brings the audience into the past he has created by forming the basis of his work with the traces of the object to shed a light on a new perspective. In other words, by going beyond exhibiting physical characteristics through his works, the artist wishes to share a series of illusions revealed through the aura of artworks as well as the memories associated with the object. Nam’s artworks, which embody material properties and aesthetic quality in addition to traces of the past, offer a quiet comfort for those depressed in a modern age, who miss the past when everyone was free to travel.