“Yona Lee: An Arrangement for a Room in Seoul” Installation view. Photo: Seowon Nam ©Art Sonje CenterArt Sonje Center presents “Yona Lee: An Arrangement for a Room in Seoul,” a site-specific exhibition that connects the museum’s hanok structure, internal staircase, and rooftop garden, through August 4.
In her work, Yona Lee has broken down the various binary distinctions and boundaries within social structures by linking stainless steel pipes—a universal component of urban environments around the world—to everyday objects. Twisting the conventional ideas and norms associated with the spaces where her work is displayed, even as she accepts their original architectural structures and grammar, her work erases vertical hierarchies and horizontal boundaries of space.
In this exhibition, she physically and conceptually wipes away the boundaries between the building interior and exterior or between private and public settings, while weaving together the various layers of time and speed present in Seoul as a city.
“Yona Lee: An Arrangement for a Room in Seoul” takes a space that is divided by contemporary society’s demands for efficiency and ties it together with time that is disappearing as it is compressed by technological advancements. Erasing the boundaries of binary thinking and concepts, it holds onto the moments we are forgetting amid the fast pace of the city.
At the same time, the exhibition also uses Lee’s experiments with site-specific involvement in the exhibition space to make use of the museum’s idled spaces, connecting various functional spaces in the building in a way that expands sensations for the visitor experiencing the setting. Art Sonje Center will be opened to the public free of charge until June 2.
