Foot and Moon

Hong Kong—Pearl Lam Galleries is pleased to present Foot and Moon, Korean artist Suki Seokyeong Kang’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, curated by David Ho Yeung Chan. Foot and Moon is a metaphor for the distance between two points: the one closest to us and the one furthest away. Utilising artworks of different media, Kang seeks to achieve an equilibrium by negotiating with the temporal and spatial characteristics of the artworks on view in the hope of reconciling our dissonant nature as human beings. Kang (b. 1977, Seoul, Korea) investigates ancient philosophies and systems in her art. In particular, her recent works probe the concept of theJeongganbo (), the earliest known Asian mensural system incorporating pitch and duration. Jeong (, Chinese character that represents a ‘well’ and resembles a grid composed of a set of squares) is a series of beats. Furthermore, Jeongganbo can be interpreted as individuals coming together to form a larger social collective. In essence, Jeong signifies a spirited vessel and focuses on how we come to terms with our physical movement as a result of our association with music.

Installed as a total ensemble that is almost an aesthetic experiment, this exhibition showcases fourteen artworks, including paintings, sculpture, and video. By stacking different shapes to form a series of free-standing sculptures, Kang questions the multiple layers of life. Fragments of memory are embodied in specific objects that illuminate moments of stasis through a repetitive process of intervention, collision, and negotiation.

Displayed on the first floor is a single-channel video work,Black Under Coloured Moon (2015), which corresponds to the installation of paintings and sculptures through choreography. In the video, two performers, a man and a woman, interact with a set of Jeong structures in varying sizes, taking part in a silent discourse. The work visualises the progression of a single day through four chapters, with each unfolding as a variation of movements that serve as a metaphor for the subtle exchanges that occur in an encounter or a parting. The sculptures, as displayed throughout the gallery, can be read as fragments from the history of civilisation with an iterative paradox. The recursive layers in Kang’s paintings symbolise the irregular rhythm created by the void between heterogeneous elements, while seemingly disparate segments possess comparative weights and volumes that gradually fill the frame. Audiences are encouraged to move selected artworks in order to provoke a new reading of the exhibition narrative in a more bodily and temporal manner.

Kang states: “I am interested in the mediations and encounters that occur from the incongruous conditions that recur throughout history. I am informed by the wisdom of ancient texts, which exist in futility and reverberate aimlessly in an age that favours the new. I am often asked why I use these ancient texts. It may be a way for me to come to terms with these conditions that have repeated themselves throughout the course of history.“