Press Release
Ierimonti Gallery is delighted to present Metamorphosis, a solo exhibition featuring Jukhee Kwon’s latest installation, her first show in New York.
Kwon bases
her practice in a physical and conceptual deconstruction of the book as
object and the book as text. Her creative process begins by discovering
or receiving abandoned books and thus recognising the social life of
the object, anticipating an analysis of the book as an organised
collection of semantic tools.
The
idiosyncratic social life and energy possessed by each book is returned
to its inception as a tree, wherein the spine of the book becomes the
root system and each page acts as a branch. Kwon carefully dissects each
page of the book using a knife. Kwon’s creative process deconstructs
the book into the set of its meanings, splicing it into each stage of
its vital cycle.
At
Ierimonti Gallery, Kwon recreates a labyrinthine forest using her
signature book sculptures. The viewer is encouraged to wander along the
paths formed around her sculptures, traveling through an experiential
maze of deconstructed and riorganised meaning. Moreover, Metamorphosis
suggests an impulse towards maturity, or a kind of transformative
process towards completeness or adulthood. Through the act of carving
the pages of the book, Jukhee Kwon achieves a plethoric totality.
