ON STAND IN GLASS UNDER CLOTH: 강주리

Finding and Naming What Cannot be Called, and Calling It

JooLee Kang has focused on the blurred boundaries between humans and nonhumans, the collapse of distinctions between nature and civilization, and the subjectivity of both organic and inorganic matter. While the forms of her narratives shift, their essence originates from a consistent starting point. Her symbolic approach to humans; one that does not objectify them, expands outward to plants, animals, and even inanimate objects. This trajectory now reaches areas once considered minor, such as decorative arts, pursuing a broader form of cross-disciplinary exploration.

Visitors attuned to her work will discover new formal experiments in their exhibition. Tablecloths without tables, glass domes holding nothing – These depart from her previous drawing-based still lives and the chunky, tangible installations she has shown before. At Gallery Chosun, drawings that have long underpinned her work are reinterpreted as individual objects, while fully realized “objects” that contain no trace of drawing also make their appearance. 

Things That Have Names but Are Not Called

Have you ever seen the meme about “things everyone knows but no one knows the name of”? Items like the hollow of a toilet paper roll, the albedo of a tangerine, paper stuffing in a gift box, the paper under sashimi, or farm marshmallows. We rarely try to name these things, or feel no need to. When we do, we describe them in long sentences or give them makeshift names. Interestingly, even these “wrong” names reveal something essential about the objects themselves. 

These items often exist to support something nearby, their form or function subtly altered or adapted to do so. They are ordinary yet indispensable, yet we tend to overlook them completely.

Looking at Kang’s drawings, we encounter a similar disorientation. A sense of dépaysement, or estrangement. Our habitual, human-centred perception of living and nonliving things is upended. We are confronted with the subtle shock of realizing we must call things by their proper names. In this way, the small act of curiosity, attention, and naming carries profound significance; the very idea JooLee Kang explores in this exhibition.

Questioning the Aesthetics of the Pedestal

Objects placed on pedestals have long been sanctified. Busts of emperors, precious jewels, and ceramics were elevated as noble, untouchable things. Yet with the arrival of contemporary art, pedestals lost their aura. They began to serve as tools for humour or irony, and the pedestal that once represented the authority of sculpture became a decorative accessory, consumed with a wink by those questioning tradition. 

JooLee Kang focuses on the “supporting” role embodied by the pedestal. Here, support is not only physical but also symbolic. She gives agency to objects long dismissed as mere decoration or accessory. In a gesture that seems to counter Le Corbusier’s critique of ornament in 『The Decorative Art of Today』 (1925), Kang highlights the colours, textures, and presence of these “ornaments”, insisting on their unique value. Through this act of estrangement, she overturns the conventional hierarchy between subject and support, inviting us to see the overlooked as central.