Faint Afterglow: Aki Inomata, Bae Yoonhwan, Park Sukwon, Chung Heeseung, Ham Jin, Suzanne Song, Kim Oksun, Lee Jaeseok, Choi Jimok

Gallery Baton presents Faint Afterglow, a group exhibition of works by 9 artists from the Korea and abroad from 11th January to 18th February 2023 in Hannam-dong, Seoul.

The primary value of works that artists produce is related to self-introspection regardless of how they appear. It can be intense visual recollections stemming from past experiences, a manifestation of particular emotions grown over a long time, or associations with lifestyles of the society where the artists belong. “Creation” begins when the artists separate themselves from these personal memories and experiences and select what they ultimately intend to describe. Thus, it is declaring who they are by revealing what kinds of subjects remain in their mind and how intuition for an act of creating triggers certain sentiments to stand out.   

In this process, illuminating the substantial truth is not necessarily crucial. What actually matters are how the specific events are imprinted and renewed internally and how they turn into artworks at the end. Appreciating artworks is an extraordinary behavior in which spectators indirectly experience what the artists have gone through from their unique perspective. As master directors, who have established their own manner of filmmaking, manage to alter their insight into fluent cinematography through directions; art practice is also an outcome of sophisticated directions unveiling the origins of aesthetics with artists’ authentic language and techniques.

The exhibition unfolds a field to explore a source of the artists’ innermost remembrances and experiences in the selected works. Although the initial motives and subjects for their creation might have faded over time, the artists’ imagination is either a new truth narrowing the niche or a window letting them encounter who they are. The exhibition space, where videos, sculptures, paintings, installations and photography coexist, functions as a microcosm which condenses uncertainty and turbulence of life and human consciousness. Consequently, it will provide an opportunity to seek out the beginning of profound emotions and experiences which shift into various outstanding visual achievements.

The close-up scene of the Sun, a NASA satellite recorded, is projected onto a large-scale screen on a loop in Blue Baton, a separate exhibition space. At the same time, a black and white photograph by Chung Heeseung, an ice sculpture by  Bae YoonHwan and paintings by Suzanne Song and Lee Jaeseok occupy the given expanse at a regular distance. This space is an intriguing example of experimenting with the possibility of delivering a sense of contemporary, regarded as a sufficient condition for the current art world, achieved by a curation rather than each piece of work. Each work, the outcome of the individual creating motive independent of a specific theme, constructs a parallel yet loosely intertwined semantic dynamics encompassing the video as a central figure to simulate secondary aspects of global warming, one of the most internationally significant environmental issues.