Exhibition Information

Park Jaehun

(Image Source = sungkok art museum)

Park Jaehun

(Image Source = sungkok art museum)

Park Jaehun

(Image Source = sungkok art museum)

Park Jaehun

(Image Source = sungkok art museum)

			Sungkok Art Museum has been hosting the Open Call program to discover and support emerging artists since 2021. In 2023, Lee Eun, Lee Jinyoung, and Park Jaehun were selected. As the final of this year’s program, Park Jaehun's solo exhibition Derivative Landscape will be held.

Park Jaehun (b.1986) defines himself as a digital sculptor, animator, and simulator. However, considering the challenging task of creating a comprehensive worldview in the digital space, it may fall short of categorizing him solely as an animator or simulator. Park Jaehun, who generates, processes, installs, and composes objects through the eyes of the creator in a virtual world, can also be considered a painter, sculptor, film director, or installation artist.

Park Jaehun uses Point Cloud and Photogrammetry to translate real-world objects into 3D simulations. He generates 3D data of objects himself or gathers ready-made data created by game developers. He then processes, disassembles, and reassembles it, placing it in a virtual digital space. The accumulated pieces form a stage that cannot exist within the structures and logic of reality. It seems to represent the real world but is filled with uniquely strange and artificial senses. This 3D simulation, more akin to a mirror illusion than reality, appears as a random collection of objects floating in the unconscious or a surrealist painting suspended in a dream.

In his work, various objects replace humans, embodying the entirety of contemporary desire and clearly illustrating a structure where all orders are subordinated and reorganized under hyper-capitalism. The artist generates a moment of capitalist joy by constructing a stage setting that combines objects into the crystallization of spectacle while juxtaposing it with an apocalyptic background destroyed by human desire, suggesting the destruction and tragedy caused by capitalism.

Park Jaehun's interests are genuinely broad. Various objects, such as Elon Musk's Starlink satellite, cargo containers symbolizing the logistical crisis, a gas pipeline connecting Russia and Germany exploded, a nuclear bomb, and the remains of the building collapsed due to the Russia-Ukraine war, appear in his works. A series of events affecting the world's society, economy, politics, culture, and the objects symbolizing them form a massive altar in the picture. Rich symbols from art history also encompass it. The artist scatters iconic symbols and metaphors from Vanitas' still-life paintings throughout the work, creating a peculiar stage setting. The narrative spreading across the screen feels as if the contemporary world has been split in half, exposing a breathtaking cross-section of the ideology of capitalism.

Virtual physical phenomena, meticulously calculated by algorithms, and improbably juxtaposed objects transform ordinary space into a surreal one. The combination of finely crafted objects, infused with the capitalist principle that everything culminates in goods, is paradoxically bizarre because it is poetic. Park’s work is a self-portrait of humanity in this era approaching its end. He documents the derivative landscape of capitalism, which has acquired a status akin to what religion once held, and poses the question of where humanity's desires are heading.

(Source = sungkok art museum)