All Survived
All Survived - Yi Yunyi
Oct.09.2019 ~ Nov.09.2019
DOOSAN Gallery Seoul
15, Jongno 33-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Korea
DOOSAN Gallery Seoul presents All Survived, a solo exhibition by Yi Yunyi from Oct 9 to Nov 9, 2019. A recipient of 2018 DOOSAN Artist Award, Yi will also participate in the DOOSAN Residency New York in the first term of 2020 and show her works in a solo exhibition at the DOOSAN Gallery New York in May of the same year.
Yi’s video and installation works tell narratives that combine fiction and nonfiction based on her own experiences and memories through poetic language and music. Her third solo exhibition All Survived presents 1 video and 7 objects and installation works. From the window gallery outside of the exhibition space to inside the gallery, the symbolic sculptural works and video offer important clues into the artist’s stories. Yi’s works begin with her direct and indirect experiences of going to hospitals due to aging, addiction or other incidents, and focuses on the various hospital records in the process. Her narratives are told through actual subjects like black and white MRI or X-RAY images, and metaphorical installations that use objects which remind one of a body scanner or light sources devoid of a form, such as laser that mimics the scanning process of an MRI examination or other medical infrared rays used for pain relief or thermal therapy.
The information of the inner body in works that use MRI or X-RAY images, like Burnished Black Liver Pottery (2019) or Pat on the Back and Snatch the Liver (2019) is extremely personal, while at the same time being the most universal record of the cross section of the human body. The human body, mutated and transformed through age, illness and other external factors, feels like that of an Other, making one experience changes in perception and cognition. Such changes in an individual’s body endlessly shake up one’s psychological world, affecting the body in different ways. On the other hand, changes in one’s psychological world might lead the body to another level. The circulating loop structure between the mind and the body organically links the content and images in the objects, installations and the video October to June (2019) inside the exhibition space, uniting the entire exhibition space into one single work. The video, composed of 4 chapters, is the artist’s reinvention of the woodprints in the 15th century alchemy book titled Rosarium Philosophorum*, connecting 3 chapters. The metaphor and symbolism charged with one’s own attitude and sentimentality within the story of another cast questions on the inevitable condition of the individual within society, who is unable to easily differentiate or separate oneself from the society. All Survived traverses across the boundaries of individual and anonymity, mind and body, and inside and outside, offering self-portraits of countless individuals today who infinitely vanish yet still continue to exist.
* The 20 woodcut prints in Rosarium Philosophorum can be interpreted in the symbolic meaning in different levels of the black, white, gold and red flowers in alchemy. This process of transition in these levels is relevant to the process of individuation, and is also related to the processes of psychotherapy.
Press released by DOOSAN Gallery Seoul
Technician | Hwang Hyo Duck
Main Assistant | Song Daseul
Space Design | Choi Johoon
<Burnished Black Pottery>
Sound | Do Yeon-woo
Video Editing | Lee Heein
Photo by studio SUJIKSUPYUNG (Hong Chulki)
Supported by DOOSAN Art Center