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In Cheonan, South Korea, an exhibition confronts what it means to reach the culturally symbolic age of 40, when people are supposed to have achieved fortitude according to the Confucian Analects.

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Noh Sangho, There's a Town Where All People Have Had to Keep Their Eyes Closed Since They Were Born (2014). Exhibition view: The 13th Hesitation, Arario Gallery, Cheonan (13 April 2021–27 March 2022)

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Organised byArario Gallery, The 13th Hesitation (13 April 2021–27 March 2022) brings together more than 80 works by 13 South Korean artists born between 1978 and 1986—among them, Kim Inbai, Noh Sangho, Baek Kyungho, Ahn Jisan, Lee Eunsil, Lee Jinju, and Insane Park.

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The exhibition's title derives from Jang Jongwan's eponymous painting on animal skin from 2015, rendered in his characteristically bright, luminous colours and meticulous brushstrokes that compose environments reminiscent of fairytale illustrations.

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Jang Jongwan, The 13th Hesitation (2015). Oil painting on unknown animal skin. 93 x 135 cm. Courtesy Arario Gallery.

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In the painting, a donkey tentatively approaches a bunch of carrots lying on green grass. Given the painting is inanimate, there is a sense that it will never achieve its goal of eating them.

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That sense of paralysis is in part personal. Jang created 13 tally marks in the sky to represent the times he perceived a failure on his part as an artist in making the work, which extends to the donkey caught in an impossible pursuit.

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Exhibition view: The 13th Hesitation, Arario Gallery, Cheonan (13 April 2021–27 March 2022). Courtesy Arario Gallery.

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That feeling of impossibility resonates with anyone who is navigating a world of increasing uncertainty, no less in South Korea.

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The artists in this show were born in the lead-up to, or aftermath of, the pro-democracy Gwangju Uprising of 1980, led by university students and civilians against military rule: a significant moment in South Korea's transition to democracy. What followed was a period of prosperity, as the country experienced unprecedented economic growth, growing internationalism, and the eventual loosening of censorship by the state.

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Exhibition view: The 13th Hesitation, Arario Gallery, Cheonan (13 April 2021–27 March 2022). Courtesy Arario Gallery.

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Precursors of K-Pop began with the debut of Taiji Boys in 1992, and the first-generation idols—H.O.T., Sechs Kies, S.E.S., Fin.K.L.—that soon followed. Then in 1998, South Korea officially opened its cultural borders to Japan, more than half a century after Korea's liberation from colonial Japanese rule.

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The explosion of popular subcultures from that time defines Don Sunpil's Kitsutaiten A (2019), whose title refers to 'a store in which shapes can be savoured'. Glass vitrines are filled with figurines from Japanese manga and anime as well as American cartoons and games, which the artist has collected since his youth. Among them is Deathpion, a plastic model of a biomechanical creature created by Japanese franchise Zoids, and SAFS Snowman by Gundam, renowned for its mechanical models.

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Don Sunpil, Kitsutaiten (2019). Exhibition view: The 13th Hesitation, Arario Gallery, Cheonan (13 April 2021–27 March 2022). Courtesy Arario Gallery.

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While most models in the installation appear to be in their original condition, some have been modified by the artist. In the case of an Ayanami Rei figurine, an immensely popular character from the 1995 anime Evangelion, a series of blobs mutate and multiply from where her face should be.

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A sense of nostalgia is attached to these figurines, often considered collectors' items and in some cases purchased with no intention of opening their packaging. They feel like portals to a time before the IMF Crisis of December 1997 and the Great Recession in 2008, when Don and his contemporaries were coming of age.

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Exhibition view: The 13th Hesitation, Arario Gallery, Cheonan (13 April 2021–27 March 2022). Courtesy Arario Gallery.

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Today, the economic stability once expected to come with middle age in South Korea is no longer the case, and the anxieties of the present feed a bleak projection in Noh Sangho's There's a Town Where All the People Have Had to Keep Their Eyes Closed Since They Were Born (2014).

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Six large-scale paintings suspended from the ceiling portray a densely populated narrative—rendered in a flat, figurative style with drips of paint that dried vertically over the canvas—that tells the story of a village whose residents are cursed from birth to live with their eyes closed or become petrified.

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Noh Sangho, There's a Town Where All The People Have Had to Keep Their Eyes Closed Since They Were Born 1 (2014). 260 x 190 cm. Courtesy Arario Gallery.

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※ This article was originally published in OCULA, and reposted under authority of OCULA

※ Click to Read the Original Article : https://ocula.com/magazine/insights/arario-gallery-13th-hesitation/

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