Art Osaka 2024: Expanded Section
Ahn Sang-Hoon and Min Sung-Hong each begin from painting and sculpture respectively, expanding their practices within the field of contemporary art. Their expansion constitutes an experiment in moving painting and sculpture into the realm of space, departing from the traditional object-centered understanding of art. In this process, the ground upon which images operate is extended beyond the conventional media of painting and sculpture into other forms of media, becoming increasingly intertwined with space itself.
Contemporary media technologies have transformed the production and circulation of images. Rather than remaining fixed to material supports, images now circulate and float through immaterial media such as networks and screens. Images today appear almost autonomous, detached from the physical media with which they were once inseparably associated. These technological conditions also shape the imagination of artists. Painting may no longer be understood solely as an image produced by pigments interacting on a canvas hung on a wall; it may also become an image expanded into space and objects. Likewise, sculpture may no longer be limited to three-dimensional objects, but may also take the form of objects upon which two-dimensional images are layered.
Through numerous exhibitions, Ahn Sang-Hoon has continued to experiment with expanding painting into space. At times, he has produced murals painted directly onto the walls of exhibition spaces; at others, he has created paintings that envelop space using multiple panels, vinyl, and other materials. Constantly resisting attempts to interpret his paintings according to fixed meanings, Ahn seeks to produce paintings that remain indeterminate. Through paintings conceived at the scale of space, he renders the environment and atmosphere of the exhibition space similarly uncertain.
Between the Sea and the Forest (O-DARK-DARK-DARK) is a “temporary wall” constructed through painting. It erases the pre-existing environment, atmosphere, circulation, and viewpoints of the exhibition space and redefines them as something ambiguous through the ambience generated by Ahn’s painting.
Min Sung-Hong, meanwhile, expands his practice through Drift_Atypical Form, experimenting with the mutable transformation of readymade paintings. Min collects objects left behind by people displaced by redevelopment and other forms of urban change, reconstructing them into new forms. His sculptures function as gestures of consolation toward those who have been uprooted, while expressing a wish for their well-being as they settle into new homes.
Discarded landscape paintings—likely painted by unknown or amateur artists—are given renewed life by Min, suspended and made to drift through space. Unlike conventional sculpture, which is generally understood as a solid, stable, and relatively fixed three-dimensional form, Min’s Drift_Atypical Form presents a mutable and uncertain landscape. In doing so, the work overlays the fractured foundations of everyday life with the ideals and aspirations of anonymous individuals.
