‘the taste of gazing’

Jung Seung & Paul Zuerker
30.08–27.09.2016

Space One presents ‘The Taste of Gazing’ by Jung Seung and Paul Zuerker. Both artists base their works on everyday objects. In the user’s point of view, everyday objects are merely tools. This focus on functional attributes doesn’t allow any other perspectives. May it be a cultural specific history, its process of production or the potential for redefinition, the objects hold hidden traces that are unrecognizable at first glance. Yet there is a demand in the objects that influence the world’s perception of their users. When the objects take shape, they sculpt our everyday life, too. The objects spark conversations, which in turn create a peephole of something different. Their materiality works as a living organism growing its mediated immateriality in a discursive praxis. They are message-driven artworks that demand the visitor’s engagement without any definite conclusion.

In Jung Seung’s installation work, numerous extension cords are assembled together like millipedes, meeting at their joints and hanging in air. The cords are connected to a sphere on the ground, which rolls when it detects an approach. As the fourth edition of ‘Multi Complex’ the artist creates a string-shaped structure, inspired by the string theory. The Multi Complex series represents the artist's criticism on modern society that consistently amplifies its structure without any apparent purpose. The jumble of social criticism, abstraction and invisible quantum mechanical ideas deliver a message in vain.

Paul Zuerker’s work is an installation of video accompanied by two knives. The video shows a live streaming of 3-D objects. One object is a pulsating simulation of liquid meat that bursts and looses its singular structure knitting into the background. The other 3-D object is a model of a knife. With a meat-like texture, it moves and changes its shape with a certain fluidity and interconnectivity. Among the two knives, the manufactured steel knife is a source of reflection on the industrialization in Korea. It inherits violence of modernity witnessed from its rough and raw surface, as it is produced in a systematic, organized, and disciplined industrial process. The 3-D printed knife is, on the other hand, produced by a person who sits on an ergonomic chair in front of a flat screen monitor and clicks a button. The inscription on the 3-D printed knife refers to 'beauty' in a plastic surgery. In their materiality and hidden processes, the two knives exemplify a cut inside of Korean society and the interrelated shift of its economy and media.

Furthermore, in response to Space One’s surroundings, the two artists create new site-specific works together. Jung invites the audience to talk about their sensitivity as an individual who continues to survive in this seemingly absurd modern society. His new sculptures, ‘No Title 2016 I’ is two headless baby dolls conjoined at the neck and shaking nervously; ‘No Title 2016 II’ is a head of baby doll with protruding steel rods. Zuerker’s sound work is a collection of voices from the people around Space One. While the plastic knife resonates a service-oriented society with its ever-frozen smiles, the real knife evokes a certain viscerality with its ‘rrgghsssshshtshghh’-throat sound. The sound, separated and rapidly dissipating from Korean society, haunts the space in its materiality.

Artist Intro:

Jung Seung’s work focuses on the system of contemporary capitalistic society. He seeks for an answer as to how one survives in the present society. He has produced solid and consistent body of work with these concepts from 2007 until 2016. Some of his recent major shows include: ‘Plastic Garden’, East bridge (798), Beijing, China, ‘New Romance’ (Korea-Australia exchange), MMCASeoul, Korea, Inauguration of MMCA Seoul (Out door sculpture project), Seoul, Korea.

Paul Zuerker’s work focuses on blurring lines and boundaries of human body and its alien exteranl parts. It touches upon questions around technology and new media connected to the body as a discursive sculpture influenced by material settings. Some of his recent exhibitions include: solo exhibition, ‘alien - identity’ at CJAS in Cheongju (2016); ‘me:alien’ at Incheon Art Platform (2015); collaboration project, ‘this is the subject we have’ and ‘decalCOmania’ (2013) at Frappant Gallery in Hamburg (2015); two person shows at Alfred Gallery in Tel Aviv (2014), Zaha Museum in Seoul (2015); City Hall of Hamburg (2013); group shows i.e. at Zaha Museum (2016), Jean Gallery (2016) in Seoul.