Dancing in the Thin Air
무용한 무용 : 無用한 舞踊
There are moments when you have to part ways, even if you want to stay together. Each time, I cut up the pieces and put them together. Pages from my old journals, buttons, and scraps of fabric from my favorite clothes become clues to the past.
After a while, I look at the pieces I've collected and paint the landscape of time that emerges. I divide them into small units of time, cutting them into thin, long strips. Holding these pieces in my hands—each one a specific moment—I fill the screen by crossing the front side, where time is recorded, with the back side, where traces remain. The repetition of a seemingly futile act to create a single scene is an attempt to reveal a personal history made up of the accumulation of moments. I believe this performative labor best shows 'time.'
Whenever I work, I think of the pirouette movement in ballet, where you stand precariously on one foot and spin rapidly. When I recall an event, I am reminded of both what was captured and what was hidden. I obsessively record, circling around the past in an attempt to recapture what was lost and fill in the blanks. But it's impossible to replay the moment in its entirety. Everything that comes to me now is a thread I've fished out of my swollen fantasies through time. The more I split the landscape and weave thin lines, the more unfamiliar the scene becomes.
Here, the stories that were hidden, the stories that were revealed, and the stories that were not chosen, perform a repetitive exercise in thin air. The gesture of repetition that grows out of loss seems to be a dance, but it becomes a poignant dance when remembering and mourning are added to it. It is a 'dance without dance.' Missing clues are filled in as new fragments of a long and thin story are woven together. The seemingly erroneous landscape is not a recreation of the past, but a working space in the present. There, I see an incomplete chronology that began with half-hearted records, a dance that danced but did not dance.

Dancing Notation – The Folded Night We Saw (무보들 – 접힌 밤), Color on Paper, Installation View, 2024

Dancing Notation – The Folded Night We Saw (무보들 – 접힌 밤), Color on Paper, Overall 290x112cm (145x112cm x2ea), 2024

La Boîte Noire (The Black Box), Color on Paper, 158x79 x2ea (Overall 185x158cm), 2023

Dancing Notation – The Compass (무보들 – 어떤 나침반), Color on Paper, 80x130cm, 2024

Dancing Notation – un, Color on Paper, 80x300cm, 2024

Dancing Notation – un, Color on Paper, 80x300cm, 2024

Dancing Notation – un, Color on Paper, 80x300cm, 2024

Dancing Notation 무보들, Color on Paper, Installation View, 2024

Dancing Notation – The Compasses (무보들 – 어떤 나침반), Color on Paper _ Variable Installation, 2024

Dancing Notation – The Compasses (무보들 – 어떤 나침반), Color on Paper _ Variable Installation, 2024

Dancing Notation – The Compasses (무보들 – 어떤 나침반), Color on Paper _ Variable Installation, 2024

Dancing in the Thin Air, Color on Paper, 336.3x648.8cm, 2023 Installation View (Group Exhibition _ This Is Not Just Local: Tactical Practices, Busan MoCA, Busan, 2024)

Holes, Installation View (Solo Show _ Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul), 2023

무용한 무용 (無用한 舞踊) Dancing in the Thin Air Installation View (Solo Show, 무용한 무용 Dancing in the thin air, Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul, 2023)

The Hole, Color on Paper, 100x35cm, 2023

Installation View (Solo Show, 무용한 무용 Dancing in the thin air, Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul, 2023)

Installation View (Solo Show, 무용한 무용 Dancing in the thin air, Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul, 2023)

The Page I was in before, Color on Paper, 40x40cm, 2023

Dancing in the Thin Air, Color on Paper, 160x160cm, 2023

La Boîte Noire (the black box), Color on Paper, 224.2x336.3cm, 2023 Installation View (Solo Show, 무용한 무용 Dancing in the thin air, Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul, 2023)

La Boîte Noire (the black box), Color on Paper, 224.2x336.3cm, 2023

무용한 무용 (無用한 舞踊), Color on Paper, 321.2x195.3cm (Each 80.3x65.1cmx12ea), 2023

무용한 무용 (無用한 舞踊), Color on Paper, 321.2x195.3cm (Each 80.3x65.1cmx12ea), 2023

Installation View (Solo Show, 무용한 무용 Dancing in the thin air, Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul, 2023)

무용한 무용 (無用한 舞踊), Color on Paper, 321.2x195.3cm (Each 80.3x65.1cmx12ea), 2023

Installation View (Solo Show, 무용한 무용 Dancing in the thin air, Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul, 2023)

Installation View (Solo Show, 무용한 무용 Dancing in the thin air, Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul, 2023)

0시 – 나의 밤, 너의 낮, Embroidery Frame, Color on Paper, Motor, Variable Installation (Each 33cm in diameter), 2023

0시 – 나의 밤, 너의 낮, Embroidery Frame, Color on Paper, Motor, Variable Installation (Each 33cm in diameter), 2023

Dancing in the Thin Air, Color on Paper, 336.3x648.8cm, 2023