Exhibition Information

URBAN CREATURE- CALLING FOR MAMMON
2018 mixed media BIO FANTASY

URBAN CREATURE
2018 mixed media

Installation view

Installation view

			The P21 will hold Lee Byung-chan's individual exhibition "White Elephants" from February 27 to March 31, 2019. Lee Byung-chan maintains his stance of criticizing the production and consumption system in modern society, twisting the bizarre ecosystems that are created in it. The author, who has been using plastic bags, which are constantly being busied and discarded in urbanized environments, as the main medium, to add to his fantasy and produce a variety of creatures, points out that the exhibition shows new installations and sculptures, blindly addicted to the glamour of consumer culture, and continues to produce "holy but at the same time become a pet complex."

The wartime title <White Elephant> is borrowed from the cultural/economic terminology, which is considered sacred in the Buddhist culture, but when used in economic terms, it means 'a huge amount of capital is required to maintain, but in reality it is useless.' Lee Byung-chan thinks that today's consumer ecosystem is in these two critical situations, moving pieces made by inversely imitating the brutal but massive installation and the production process of industrial goods, which presupposes a resounding but dismantlement.

The glass-wrapped P21 exhibition hall obscures the shop window and distinction, captures the eye of the beholder and paralyzes reason, to dazzle people. Plastic bags, which are inflated and shriveled, are combined with colorful silk patches tied to the saplings, revealing that the whole city is no different from a shrine that blindly houses the god of consumption. But this sacred plastic bag creature, without possessing true vitality, is nothing more than a hollow-filled shell with an air-filled body. In today's society, where the power of capital is stretched indefinitely, not only the goods but also the human beings adorn and show themselves with various shells. The author blends fragile vinyl chunks welded with a disposable lighter with irritating primary-colored LED lights, highlighting this kernel-free luxury. 

Along with the installation process, this exhibition will introduce new 3D printing sculptures. The sculpture, which is designed after the life form of a plastic bag made by the author himself, has a hard and fine surface through the stages of output and painting similar to the mechanized production process, are still parts of the work that have not been completed. This marks the beginning of his attempt to expand research into the consumer ecosystem that has so far been followed, drawing attention to today's environment, which is a mixture of creative, industrial production and consumption activities as an artist. The author criticizes the deformity in which he spent a long time putting his work in the same position as the white elephant and consuming the act of production, and asks self-made questions about the meaning of the artist's creation.