Dissolution & Rebirth: Tracing the Unseen in Repetition
2024.01.07-01.14
Artist Talks: 01.11 (Sat)
"Dissolution & Rebirth: Tracing the Unseen in Repetition" interrogates the multifaceted personas individuals adopt across shifting contexts and examines how these fluid identities mirror broader societal behaviours. At its core, the exhibition addresses the paradox of repetition in contemporary life—where actions that once facilitated mastery and enlightenment now risk leading to exhaustion, disconnection, and the dissolution of self.
Repetition, rather than enabling growth, is reimagined as a cycle that erodes meaning and fractures the possibilities for deeper understanding and connection. Framing repetition as both method and metaphor, the exhibition considers its role as a force of both disintegration and renewal. It reflects on how accelerated modernity contrasts with ancient rhythms of ritual, drawing from Heidegger’s concept of "ontological poverty" and Nietzsche’s "eternal recurrence." These philosophical foundations inspire a meditation on whether repetition serves as a conduit for endurance or merely perpetuates cycles of depletion.
Set against Seoul’s rapidly transforming cultural and architectural landscape, KOTE serves as a critical site of inquiry—a space resonant with memory yet under the pressures of urban erasure and capitalist expansion. Through this lens, the exhibition foregrounds questions of survival, disappearance, and reconstruction, contemplating whether traces left behind through unconscious repetition can reclaim lost narratives or further dissolve into obscurity.
9 emerging international artists—End Chung, Myungsub Suh, Kamku Kim, Tsuyuko Watanabe, Minkyu Kim, Sascha AT Huth, FF, Yuki Ito/Mirai Yamada, and Sanghyun Kim—engage with these questions through a diverse range of mediums including sculpture, sound, and mixed media installations. Their works probe the psychological and spatial imprints of repetition, exposing the fractures and residues embedded in cycles of trauma and renewal.
The exhibition further reflects on themes of Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), contemplating whether modern society’s relentless pace cultivates resilience or exacerbates detachment. It highlights the unconscious trails left by individuals—gestures, habits, and traces—that define contemporary existence, questioning whether these patterns signal permanence or disappearance. Deliberate in materiality and conceptual rigour, these practices challenge viewers to navigate thresholds of perception and erasure, to linger within the tension between dissolution and rebirth.
In doing so, "Dissolution & Rebirth" emerges as a meditation on resilience, fragmentation, and the unseen architectures of identity and memory. With profound gratitude to KOTE’s director, Julie, and the entire team, this exhibition honours the site as a sanctuary for reflection and reinvention. It extends an invitation to audiences to confront the unseen, to trace patterns of loss and emergence, and to reconsider the invisible forces that shape contemporary life.
EXHIBITION (by floor)
1. Modern Relationships and New Interpretations (2nd floor)
현대의 관계 맺기와 새로운 해석 (이층)
2. Resonant Thresholds: Navigating Human, Machine, and Material Identities in a Fragmented World (3rd floor)
공명하는 임계점 : 분열된 세계에서 인간, 기계, 물질의 정체성 탐색 / 김상현, 펭, 아서 (3층)
3. Repetition of Public Conflicts and the Possibility of Resolution (3rd floor)
공적 갈등의 반복과 청산의 가능성층 (3층)
4. Exhaustion (basement) 소진 (지하)
5. Understanding (4th floor) 이해(4층)
Participating Artists
@firebite_ (Sanghyun Kim)
@kamkukim (Kamku Kim)
@ffpractitioner (FF)
@ms.ms.suh (Myungsub Suh)
@at.huth (AT Huth)
@tsuyuko_ (Tsuyuko Watanabe)
@windhillchill (Yuki Ito) / @mirai_419 (Mirai Yamada)
@kimminkyu.art (Minkyu Kim)
@end_chun9 (End Chung)
Dissolution & Rebirth: Tracing the Unseen in Repetition
2024.01.07-01.14
Artist Talks: 01.11 (Sat)
"Dissolution & Rebirth: Tracing the Unseen in Repetition" interrogates the multifaceted personas individuals adopt across shifting contexts and examines how these fluid identities mirror broader societal behaviours. At its core, the exhibition addresses the paradox of repetition in contemporary life—where actions that once facilitated mastery and enlightenment now risk leading to exhaustion, disconnection, and the dissolution of self.
Repetition, rather than enabling growth, is reimagined as a cycle that erodes meaning and fractures the possibilities for deeper understanding and connection. Framing repetition as both method and metaphor, the exhibition considers its role as a force of both disintegration and renewal. It reflects on how accelerated modernity contrasts with ancient rhythms of ritual, drawing from Heidegger’s concept of "ontological poverty" and Nietzsche’s "eternal recurrence." These philosophical foundations inspire a meditation on whether repetition serves as a conduit for endurance or merely perpetuates cycles of depletion.
Set against Seoul’s rapidly transforming cultural and architectural landscape, KOTE serves as a critical site of inquiry—a space resonant with memory yet under the pressures of urban erasure and capitalist expansion. Through this lens, the exhibition foregrounds questions of survival, disappearance, and reconstruction, contemplating whether traces left behind through unconscious repetition can reclaim lost narratives or further dissolve into obscurity.
9 emerging international artists—End Chung, Myungsub Suh, Kamku Kim, Tsuyuko Watanabe, Minkyu Kim, Sascha AT Huth, FF, Yuki Ito/Mirai Yamada, and Sanghyun Kim—engage with these questions through a diverse range of mediums including sculpture, sound, and mixed media installations. Their works probe the psychological and spatial imprints of repetition, exposing the fractures and residues embedded in cycles of trauma and renewal.
The exhibition further reflects on themes of Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), contemplating whether modern society’s relentless pace cultivates resilience or exacerbates detachment. It highlights the unconscious trails left by individuals—gestures, habits, and traces—that define contemporary existence, questioning whether these patterns signal permanence or disappearance. Deliberate in materiality and conceptual rigour, these practices challenge viewers to navigate thresholds of perception and erasure, to linger within the tension between dissolution and rebirth.
In doing so, "Dissolution & Rebirth" emerges as a meditation on resilience, fragmentation, and the unseen architectures of identity and memory. With profound gratitude to KOTE’s director, Julie, and the entire team, this exhibition honours the site as a sanctuary for reflection and reinvention. It extends an invitation to audiences to confront the unseen, to trace patterns of loss and emergence, and to reconsider the invisible forces that shape contemporary life.
EXHIBITION (by floor)
1. Modern Relationships and New Interpretations (2nd floor)
현대의 관계 맺기와 새로운 해석 (이층)
2. Resonant Thresholds: Navigating Human, Machine, and Material Identities in a Fragmented World (3rd floor)
공명하는 임계점 : 분열된 세계에서 인간, 기계, 물질의 정체성 탐색 / 김상현, 펭, 아서 (3층)
3. Repetition of Public Conflicts and the Possibility of Resolution (3rd floor)
공적 갈등의 반복과 청산의 가능성층 (3층)
4. Exhaustion (basement) 소진 (지하)
5. Understanding (4th floor) 이해(4층)
Participating Artists
@firebite_ (Sanghyun Kim)
@kamkukim (Kamku Kim)
@ffpractitioner (FF)
@ms.ms.suh (Myungsub Suh)
@at.huth (AT Huth)
@tsuyuko_ (Tsuyuko Watanabe)
@windhillchill (Yuki Ito) / @mirai_419 (Mirai Yamada)
@kimminkyu.art (Minkyu Kim)
@end_chun9 (End Chung)