I Reach Out to You in Stretched Forms

To understand the artist Hyunsung Park, it seems essential to begin with her 2018 work, Swinging (https://youtu.be/wcvnkoqdyOI), which is also included in this exhibition, I Reach Out to You in Stretched Forms. This video captures the artist endlessly colliding her knees against the gallery wall while swinging on a self-made swing. Propelled by gravity and the pendulum-like motion of her body, the swing repeatedly lunges toward the wall, gradually dismantling the seated artist’s (performer’s) body. This aggression toward the transparent wall resembles a shocking form of mania, a compulsive self-fracturing. As Heidegger might describe, the authentic self (Eigentliche)—one’s true self—and the inauthentic self (Uneigentliche)—the socially constructed self formed through relationships—are so intertwined that separating them seems to require such destructive acts of self-dismemberment. This act of physical destruction confronts its most extreme form—death—and evokes existential anxiety (Angst), enabling the artist to distinguish her being from the illusory personas that surround her. It is through this obsessive act of rediscovery, within the relational tension between self and others, that Park Hyun-sung’s work finds its foundation and driving force. Fragmented Bodies Park’s themes of self-fragmentation and separation become more visually explicit in her recent works, such as I Reach Out to You in Stretched Forms (2024) and Digesting Boundaries (2024). These pieces, primarily composed of fabric, extend the tradition of soft sculpture seen in the works of artists like Magdalena Abakanowicz, Eva Hesse, and Lee Bul. Unlike sculptures made of robust materials like steel, stone, or bronze that withstand the passage of time, these works express fragility and transience through delicate and lightweight forms. The soft, flexible fabric evokes human skin, symbolizing human vulnerability in contrast to rigid materials. In addition to fabric and textiles, Park employs materials such as IV stands, stainless steel, and PVC hoses to create forms that are abstract yet reminiscent of the human body. Layers of mesh fabric, stretched taut or draped loosely over internal stainless steel structures, resemble skin—pierced, pulled, or pooling on the floor. The installation conjures fragmented human forms: sagging skin, severed hands, exposed organs, hollow torsos, and shattered bones. These fragmented, partial representations of the human body echo the destruction and division seen in Swinging, where the artist paradoxically sought to preserve her essential self through acts of disintegration. Suspended Yet Grounded Unusually, Park chooses to suspend her works vertically in the exhibition space rather than arranging them horizontally. The resulting vertical structures, appearing to defy gravity as they sometimes flow upward, create a peculiar tension. In fact, tension has been a recurring aesthetic in Park’s work, evident even in her early chair-based sculptures. Across her installations, contrasting elements—hardness and softness, defined forms and anti-forms, order and randomness—engage in a constant push-and-pull at their boundaries. Her pieces, while seemingly painful and contorted like a tortured body, can simultaneously evoke a poignant gesture, as if reaching out for a handshake. Furthermore, despite being suspended, all of Park’s creations maintain some connection to the ground. Softly cascading fabrics and materials extend downward, barely grazing the floor, but not in a way that firmly supports their weight. This ambiguous connection may offer a key to approaching Park’s work: the feeling of being suspended yet strangely tethered. This delicate point of contact might reflect her way of perceiving the world and engaging with others.