Underneath Things

We are home. We are at home, the place we ourselves have built and which we carry with us. It does not take much to initially build a home, it’s child’s play, the drawing of a circle in the sand. This here is where I am, and the rest of the world is over there, far away. As I turn the circle keeps the dangers of the world at bay and I feel safe here. La, la, la is always a song that carries only as far as the sound’s energy dissipates. Can anyone hear me still? This kind of encircling that establishes a safe space serves a purpose. The organisation of space into an outside and an inside begets action, allowing us to accomplish things and fulfil tasks, as the barrier we build holds off those forces of chaos that threaten to overcome us. We sing before battle, a child hums in the dark. We feel strong - we can face… anything. But in so doing we also declare our presence to others. I am describing an affective state, the way my presence is registered by others around me in my immediate environment. For the curator of the exhibition “Underneath Things,” Jieun Kim, this carving out of a territory, which is also the self-declaration of presence, she associates with the art practices of Glory Kim, Jinju Park and Dominik Styk. Her question is of strength in its visible form - for what is it that we see when you approach, what do I hear when you sing? Often this hides a paradox, as what we take to be a sign of strength, is the most flimsy of things. I now think of the tent made of sticks before Melancholia collides with earth. It is the very fierceness with which we declare ourselves - a child always holds their stick very tightly and sings very loud - that gives the impression of armour, with its spikes and horns and other grotesque features. And the point would be, to look underneath. In their resemblance to the exoskeletons of certain insects, Glory Kim’s twisted aluminium sculptures relate to external defensive structures. The starting point for his “Adaptive series” are the feelings of repulsion and fear at the filth and threat that the invertebrate world of insects represents - like the child who crouches down in the sand to look more closely at the ant that dares to crawl too near, slowly moving across the circular boundary defining their safe space. Will another one follow, an entire Swarm? I better squish it first, giving a final twist with my thumb. But the ant has its own protective encircling in the form of its hard exoskeleton, chitin, with further bio-mineral layers protecting its vulnerable insides. Acknowledging that the “structures of disgust” such as antennae or segmented limbs are necessary for the insect’s survival allow Glory Kim to move beyond the representation of ugliness to reconsider the beings evoking these feelings in us, placing insect and human on equal footing and blurring the boundaries between self and other. In the work, Pupa, the focus is on the state prior to metamorphosis, referring to the life cycle of insects undergoing transformation from immature larva to mature adult. By enclosing larva and his own face in a single body he presents a moment in which evolution could potentially go either way, as if invertebrates too could develop embryonic developmental homologies with humans, evidence both of a common ancestry and a potential evolutionary destination. In contrast, the practice of Jinju Park turns inwards, to examine all that which defensive mechanisms and armour building conceals. She paints on gossamer-thin silk delicate portraits of her body, her skin punctuated by piercings and pimples or carefully wrapped in sheer cloth. The body here is still considered as a kind of “shell,” separating and hiding internal life from external dangers, but she shows this shell to be intensely fragile. That initial circle in the sand I drew - we may embellish its circular boundary all we like, and build and build ever more elaborate structures, but it can all be swept away in a single stroke. Nevertheless and despite of the protective circle’s inherent fragility, only with this shell are we able to set out and explore what lies beyond this boundary. Jinju Park writes that to express her inner life, she has to pass through the bounds of her physicality in order to reach the outside world. I would say, we can reach out into the unknown because we know there is a place we can return to - home - however slight its walls may be. The twisted hazelnut branches and creased textiles of Dominik Styk’s objects open onto the pleasure parks of the 18th and 19th centuries, where hermits were employed as “living ornaments” - in German, as “Schmuck” or jewellery - to live in grottos as part of the surrounding scenery. His interest lies in the act of cultivation, plants and animals shaped to suit human purposes, an undertaking which includes even the human body. The kind of grotesque forms we see in the exhibition - the spikes and piercings and the sense of immanent threat and disgust these harbour - all this we build for others to see. We sing in a way that others can hear and understand our song. This is why we sing so loud and so clear, so our voice carries ever further and our circle is ever wider. We build our homes and carry them with us so that we have a place into which we can retreat, giving us strength to fulfil our tasks. But we also build our home with the other in mind, so that they can admire the apparent solidity of our walls. Don’t look though at what I have built for you - mum, mum, look at me! Over here! Look at me. I am over here.