Jongheon Bae has been re–interpreting useless and endangered objects and tools or adding philosophical meanings to traces and cracks generated by natural phenomena based on his interest in expanding daily experiences and putting them into a social context. In this process, personal experiences and stories are expanded into sociocultural phenomena and contemporary issues. Therefore, trivial everyday objects and phenomena are re–interpreted, and eventually physical and mental evils attributable to the wave of industrialization and capitalization are revealed metaphorically. For example, in his work titled 〈An exploratory report on the rare creatures vanishing at the time of the restoration off the Cheonggye Stream(2003)〉, he revealed his role as an observer and interpreter by adding biological imaginings to objects he discovered. And 〈Relics Project (2005)〉, in which useless objects are turned into relics through visual imagination, is intended to examine the identity of an object from a new perspective and is considered one of his representative works.

In addition to these two works, his representative works include not only 〈Concrete Farmer/City Farmer (2006)〉 and 〈Weather Forecast_Climate Project (2010)〉 which were based on the contemporary environment and on social issues, but, 〈Yu_Mongyudowondo (2000)〉, 〈Yu_Geumgangjeondo (2000)〉, 〈Vestigial Organs (2008)〉 and 〈Chinese Restaurant Shanghai (2009)〉, which were intended to visualize the concept discussed in his research on place and time. Particularly, in his solo exhibition titled «Looking at S (2001)» held at the Daegu Arts Court Sol, he measured the depth of the walls, ceiling and spaces in the exhibition hall using his physical senses based on the floor map, and then converted the exhibition hall into a completely perceived space and visualized it using the results of his observation, such as in photos and texts (The article in the catalog of this exhibition, titled ‘Issues on Thematic Research and Interpretation of a Certain Space’ was published in the Art Review Magazine Issue 64 (Spring, 2002) as a research paper). This exhibition shares the main implications and context of his new exhibition in that both of his exhibitions are based on the results of his unique observation of a specific place and time.

In this way, his works that have been sharing several keywords over the past 30 years feature various aspects through a wide range of experiment formats. You can see that his projects are rooted in his interest in time and extinction, excavation and the re–interpretation of traces engraved on places, and a longing for and attachment to nature. Furthermore, in his works, an individual as a member of society facing contemporary sociocultural phenomena is in confrontation with an individual seeking composure in a trivial daily life, and his works clearly represent his attitude and principles. And such an attitude is based on the achievements and progress of conceptual art, which is meant to break down the old practices and the modern humanistic worldview prevailing in the art community through the transition and interference of media deviating from formalized work formats in the course of performing the artistic act. Especially, as the texts themselves started to be actively involved in artworks as a part thereof, not just as ancillary items, they have come to emerge as a sort of works that promote the participation of the visitors, deviating from works that are subject to genre–based classification, which are preferred in the so–called the art market. A series of such works representatively reveal a unique and witty working tendency of his own. Jongheon Bae, who had been maintaining such formats since the 2000s, is seeking a transition to a new genre while maintaining the thematic association. Such a transition is a way to determine his position in the journey of constant change and, in recent years, he has been dedicated to painting works. Although he had been intermittently releasing drawings and 2–dimensional works as well, his recent painting works are based on his own methods that are perfectly fit for expressing the subjects of his works.

It also can be said that this exhibition comprehensively summarizes such subjects and methods. In this exhibition for him, which is subtitled a ‘Wandering mountains of an underground man’, he demonstrates practical experiments by converting traces left on nature by the structured violence of modern people so as to recover a longing for nature and lyrical emotions. In addition to a large painting work entitled 〈The clearing after the rain at Mt. Mijang〉, which reproduces the traces and cracks on a cement wall as a post–rain landscape of a mountain which he named 〈Mount Mijang> (Mijang means plastering), he unveils his new works, including 〈Tunnel Mountains〉, which depicts traces in a tunnel as natural scenery, and video installations. Furthermore, a wide range of landscape paintings, including 〈Cloud Mountains〉, that catches and reinterprets the shapes of clouds, and 〈Concrete Mountains〉, which depicts the cracks on a concrete wall as a landscape, demonstrate his imaginings and sophisticated reproduction techniques.

To someone else, traces on the wall may just mean the flow of time, a result of a force applied or the natural deformation of an object, but to him, such traces are a landscape and another nature which is a space–time of deviation hidden by everyday life. The shape of a mountain, which is finally completed by adding his action of ‘peeling off or scratching’ on the birch plywood, reveals the new value of nature in front of the fire of abrasion, rupture and time. This is consistent with his working experience, which has been focused on excavation, reinterpretation and reproduction in his own unique way, and is an act of artistic resuscitation, which discovers something that might have been existing and which highlights its value, rather than an act of creating something new. Therefore, the plastering work is a special design for beautification for him, as it literally means in Chinese. In addition, his attitude towards life, which resembles that of a plasterer, takes one more step further away from the reproduction of an ideal and imaginary nature separated from our daily lives, so as not only to propose a way to coexist with nature in the field of everyday life that supports him, but also to convert it into a form that contains a lyrical emotion to delay time from extinction.

Majoring in painting in the undergraduate and graduate schools at Gachon University, Jongheon Bae is currently working in the position of lecturer for graduate students at his Gachon University and Donga University. His major solo exhibitions include «Looking at Bl» held at the Alternative space Pool in 2002, «Desire for a remote region_ Weeds project» held at the Insa Art Space in 2005, «Naissance» held at the Daegu Art Museum in 2016, and «疊疊山中 CheopCheopSanJung», held at Paradise ZIP in 2018. The major group exhibitions that he participated in include «Document», held at the Seoul Museum of Art in 2004, «Hermes Foundation Missulsang–Nominate» in 2010, and «As the Moon Waxes and Wanes» at MMCA Gwacheon in 2016.

Based in Daejeon, Kuyoung Heo has been devoting himself to the exploration of the multi–layered relationship between the senses and concepts generated from intermedia transition, conversion and interference, based on his wariness of the genre–based classification of artworks and object otherization. His works based on such perspectives are mainly created using various techniques, such as citation, hommage or self–reference, or in a way that paintings, installations, videos, texts and wall drawings get involved with each other. It is also noticeable that his works follow the trends of conceptual art which emerged in Korea's art community in the 1970s. Particularly, based on his interest in the dematerialization of objects, he converts his reinterpretation of an object, the act of granting new value to useless things and an attitude of resistance towards authoritative genre–based classification, into artworks to constantly update the questions about aesthetics with no progress, and, furthermore, to art itself and the answers thereto through his artistic performance. As one of his representative works, is created using the tempera technique with the mixture of pigment and ash generated by burning his master's thesis titled . 2–dimensional painting and object installation are combined in this work. This work borrows John Baldessari's in order to ask whether the ash generated by burning a thesis as an object can be an art material.

His other work, entitled 〈Buried Object〉, released in early 1994, is created by literally cutting objects into pieces and attaching those pieces together with other things, such as leaves and a chair on the wall to experiment with the impossibility of comprehensive perception. This work is intended to break down certain desires that could be overflowing by letting fragments illuminate or encourage each other. Furthermore, in his 〈Shadow– Here (2008)〉, he installed an object on the wall and took it off the wall again, and then drew an outline following the edge of its shadow with pastel to express the contact with the surface revealed by the shadow and the unsteady world at the opposition point to the material world. In addition, through the method of field drawing to realize temporality, vanity, traces and ephemerality in an art form, he presents his works originating from a temporary performance within a specific space–time as an event in the exhibition space.

Even in this exhibition, he tries to create variations through the circular structure of materials and formats within the boundary of connectivity with his previous works and attitude. Therefore, his works are created by composing, disassembling and reassembling his existing works to put them in a different context. All his works laid out for the exhibition also become buried objects for another perspective. The title of this exhibition, which is «Still One of My Most Passionate Images», is also named after the title of his previous work. It can be said that ‘Still’ in the title means not only seeking a valid point which is continuously created and transformed along the axis of time, but also visualizing the paradoxical expression of a desire not to be stuck somewhere. However, he considers the liveliness featured in ‘passionate’ images as a part of a certain identity that he is currently working on so as to deviate from a simple reminiscence or degeneration. As stated above, his work is not intended to acquire authority as an intact creation, but is characterized by a circular nature of being a motive for other work. The meaning of raw materials and original copy is equivalent to the materials to be discarded. In other words, from his perspective, the original copy is never intact, and its disintegrated traces are meant to be attached somewhere else, to become another raw material to arouse a new concept, shape and sensation. Under such a circular structure, from his biological perspective, nothing can be taken into account individually, and everything is closely connected with each other.

That means, the circular structure of the ecological system in which nature and human beings are closely interconnected as organisms is consistent with the concept of circularity featured in his way of working. After all, the most inner thoughts, attitudes to life and philosophical principles trigger a transition to a wide range of visual media, and the consequential relation becomes the catalyst that promotes another relation which will be formed between the visitor and the work, not by the artist. This indicates what he basically thinks the arts should do, and this means the arts as a result of being open to others.

Graduating in Department of Painting from the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University, he currently has the position of assistant professor in Western Painting in the Faculty of Department of Painting at Mokwon University. Besides that, he used to be a member of ‘Logos and Pathos’, a small group movement in the 1990s. His major solo exhibitions include «The Night» at Spacemom Museum of Art in Cheongju in 2000, «Look Here» at the Igong Gallery in Daejeon in 2009, «Will a phoenix arise from the ahes?» at KunstDoc Gallery in 2014, and «Heo, Kuyoung’s Romantic Garden» at the Nook Gallery in 2017. Major group exhibitions that he participated in include «Young Korean Artists 94» at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in 1994, «Instal-scape» at the Daegu Culture Center in 1996, Frame is better than Picture at the Kumho Museum of Art in 1998, «Busan Biennale 2008: Contemporary Art Exhibition: Expenditure» at the Busan Museum of Art in 2008, «Mak Mak(幕膜)» at Project Space SARUBIA in 2014 and «Transitional Spring & Beyond» at the Daejeon Museum of Art in 2018.

• Lecture
  Works of Jongheon Bae and Kuyoung Heo reviewed from an ecoaesthetic perspective
  December 14th (SAT) 2pm, 3F Seminar Room
  [Lecturer : Hyeonju Yu (Art Critic)]
• Talks with the Artist
  Trends of conceptual art in the 1990s and 2000s inferred from the works of Jongheon Bae and Kuyoung Heo
  December 21st (SAT) 2pm, 3F Seminar Room
  [Panels : Hakryang Kim (Professor at the Department of Curatorship, Dongduk Women’s University), Youngtaek Park (Art Critic), Sunyoung Lee (Art Critic), Hyun Jung (Art Critic)]
• Curator Tour
  November 27th (WED) 7pm
  *For more information, please visit our website