Ham Jin | Somewhere Underneath | HADA Contemporary | 2014

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HAM JIN SOMEWHERE UNDERNEATH


This catalogue is published by HADA Contemporary to accompany the exhibition:

HAM JIN SOMEWHERE UNDERNEATH 4 DECEMBER 2014 - 30 JANUARY 2015 No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any mean, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without prior written permission from HADA Contemporary Ltd.


HAM JIN SOMEWHERE UNDERNEATH




HAM JIN SOMEWHERE UNDERNEATH Since 1998, Ham has been creating petit figurative sculptures fusing unusual objects such as hair and dust to construct eccentric Lilliput worlds, often hidden in the shallow crevices of the space. Recurrently inspired by contorting the readily given context of the found objects, his new worlds of eccentric yet entertaining narratives were reminiscent of his childhood memories in the countryside. In the more recent years, he developed his practice further towards the notable direction of abstraction investigating different artistic mediums as painting and drawing as well bringing his works into their full potential. As the earlier works were animated into associations within the scope of reality and the society that we occupy, his recent works cease to associate and begin to dissociate from fixed narratives and forms empowering the material and his unconscious to engage in its own creativity. The intricate sculptures of pure visual and material forms of the black polymer clay devoid of legible point of reference float in somewhat sombre and aloof. Analogous to the spontaneous action painting by Jackson Pollock, his sculptures sail and wonder freely across the void space creating ‘spatial drawings’ unchained from the consciousness. For current exhibition, Ham created all new works that fruit from this artistic progression encompassing both stages of his ar tistic career into unity. Marked by chaotic immediacy and spontaneity, his works are the collection of the ar tist’s


impromptus stream of thoughts and imagination generously encouraged by their materiality – the instantaneous malleable flexibility. Blossoming with colours unlike his recent black monotone sculptures, his eerie sculptures upspring multitude of lives unknown to our minds. Ghost like beings metamorphosing from a forest and ghoul like creatures appearing from the underworld, his world of clay reminds of the Gothic sensibility of Tim Burton in his stop motion animation such as Corpse Bride (2005) and Spirited Away (2001) by Miyazaki Hayao. Ham’s affection and interest towards the works and the worldly views by the likes of Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516) and Salvator Rosa (1615-1673) and his association of his uncanny clay worlds to the dripping heaven created from the painting in an American fantasy directed by Vincent Ward in 1998 based on the novel by Richard Matheson of the same title What Dreams May Come (1978) also propose the Gothic sensibility in his works. In which the notion of life and death and real and fantasy becomes meaningless as the film narrates, ‘thought is real, physical is illusion.’ The title referencing the iconic soliloquy in Hamlet (c.1599) on his painful contemplation on death, can also be considered as a postmodern progenitor of Gothic atmosphere in that it plays with language and form with full of the supernatural and the strange like many of his writings. ‘It was the function of Gothic to open horizons beyond social patterns, rational decisions, and institutionally approved emotions; in a word, to enlarge the sense of reality and its impact on the human being. It became then a great liberator of feeling. It acknowledged the non-rational – in the world of things and events, occasionally in the realm of the transcendental, ultimately and most persistently in the depths of the human being.’[1] The Gothic tradition grew out of the reinvigorated interest in the aspects of experience that refuse to succumb to the rule of reason as agreed by Francisco de Goya that ‘fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.’ Like Tim Burton’s firm recognition of the duality that the darkness is part of human existence and the human psyche, Ham’s works trigger myriad of emotions and stories flourishing our creativity as well as our capacity to accept and nurture different ways of looking at and exploring life. As Beville notes that the Gothic functions to blur the distinctions - in terms of oppositions and confrontations: life and death; good and evil; human and monstrous; male and female; self and other ; past and present; fiction and reality and so on - becoming the true voice for that which is unspeakable and unrepresentable. Over the centuries, it has developed its own subversive language, or counter-narrative, which is the equivalent to the postmodern decentralization and the loss of grand narratives suggesting the subjective and personal quality of the truth, reality and experience.[2] Ham’s works are fundamentally self-referential in that he carefully observes himself and beyond to disgorge his most natural and innate feelings. His sculptures are the harvest of his investigation on life and humanity in a broad sense, in effort to trespass the boundaries and structures of the current. Perhaps to reveal the crisis or loss of self in the contemporary times and that the world is never the place of paradise that we hypnotise ourselves of but the place that circuses around the edge of crisis. Ham Jin (b. 1978) received his BFA in Sculpture in Kyungwon University, Korea. He has exhibited internationally at Busan Museum of Art, Busan, Korea (2013); 4th Guangzhou Triennial, Guangzhou, China (2012); Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2010); Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Paris, France (2008); PLATEAU Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea (2008); Aomori Contemporary Art Centre, Aomori, Japan (2007); Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden, Germany (2007); Musée de Design et d’arts Appliqués Contemporains, Lausanne, Switzerland (2006); 3rd Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, Fukuoka, Japan (2005); Foundation Cartier pour l’art Contemporain, Paris, France (2005); 51st Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2005); Mori Ar t Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2005); Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA (2003); Artsonje Center, Seoul, Korea (2003); de Appel Ar ts Centre, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2003); East Modern Art Centre, Beijing, China (2002); Japan Foundation Forum, Tokyo, Japan (2002); 4th Gwangju Biennale, Korea (2002) among many. He currently lives and works in Seoul, South Korea.

[1] [2]

Heilman, Robert B. quoted in Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, The Coherence of Gothic Conventions, Methuen, New York, 1986, p. 3 Beville, Maria, Gothic-postmodernism – Voicing the Terrors of Postmodernity, Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam, 2009, pp. 41-48

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Island #4 | Polymer clay, glue and wire | 5.5 x 6.5 x 5.5 cm | 2014


Island #7 | Polymer clay, glue and wire | 13 x 13.5 x 13 cm | 2014

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Island #10 | Polymer clay, glue and wire | 10 x 18 x 14 cm | 2014


Island #8 | Polymer clay, glue and wire | 12 x 10 x 10.5 cm | 2014

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Island #6 | Polymer clay, glue and wire | 8 x 17 x 11 cm | 2014


Island #1 | Polymer clay, glue and wire | 9 x 12 x 10.5 cm | 2014

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Island #3 | Polymer clay, glue and wire | 6.5 x 10 x 8.5 cm | 2014


Island #5 | Polymer clay, glue and wire | 11.8 x 18.5 x 14 cm | 2014

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Island #11 | Polymer clay, glue and wire | 14 x 19 x 11.5 cm | 2014


Island #2 | Polymer clay, glue and wire | 7.5 x 12.5 x 12 cm | 2014

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Untitled-201433 | Polymer clay and polyester | 15 x 12 x 7 cm | 2014

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Untitled-201401 | Polymer clay and polyester | 9.5 x 7.5 x 3 cm | 2014

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Untitled-201410 | Polymer clay, glue and polyester | 11.5 x 13 x 9.5 cm | 2014

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Untitled-201427 | Polymer clay and polyester | 9 x 13 x 5 cm | 2014


Untitled-201424 | Sculpey and wire | 1 x 1.3 x 3 cm | 2014

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Untitled-201428 | Polymer clay, polyester and wire | 6 x 221 x 5 cm (Installation variable) | 2014


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Untitled-201428 | Polymer clay, polyester and wire | 6 x 221 x 5 cm (Installation variable) | 2014 | Detail


Untitled-201428 | Polymer clay, polyester and wire | 6 x 221 x 5 cm (Installation variable) | 2014 | Detail

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Untitled-201434 | Polymer clay, polyester and wire | 7 x 92 x 6.5 cm | 2014 | Detail


Untitled-201431 | Polymer clay, glue and polyester | 8.5 x 7.5 x 7.5 cm | 2014

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Untitled-201420 | Sculpey and wire | 3.6 x 16.5 x 3.5 cm | 2014


Untitled-201419 | Polymer clay, glue and polyester | 5 x 4.5 x 4.7 cm | 2014

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Ham Jin | Somewhere Underneath | Installation View | 2014


Untitled-201414 | Polymer clay, polyester and fishing line | 9 x 9 x 4 cm | 2014

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Untitled-201404 | Polymer clay, glue and polyester | 8 x 10.5 x 5.5 cm | 2014

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BIOGRAPHY


ham jin b. 1978 Lives and works in Seoul, South Korea EDUCATION 2000 BFA in Sculpture, Kyungwon University, Korea SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2014 Somewhere Underneath, HADA Contemporary, London, UK 2013 Unseen, Doosan Gallery New York, New York, USA Ham Jin, Art&Public, Geneva, Switzerland 2012 Planet, PKM Gallery | Bartleby Bickle & Meursault, Seoul, Korea 2011 Ham Jin, PKM Gallery, Seoul, Korea 2008 Debris People, Miki Wick Kim Contemporary Art, Zurich, Switzerland 2007 The Others, Aomori Contemporary Art Centre, Aomori, Japan 2004 Aewan, PKM Gallery, Seoul, Korea 1999 Imaginative Diary, Project Space Sarubia, Seoul, Korea

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2014 Close-up, Doosan Gallery Seoul, Seoul, Korea 2013 Korean Art: An Age of Grand Navigation, Busan Museum of Art, Busan, Korea 2012 The Unseen, curated by Jiang Jiehong, Jonathan Watkins, 4th Guangzhou Triennial, Guangzhou, China 2011 Countdown, Culture Station Seoul 284, Seoul, Korea 2010 Plastic Garden, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China 2009 Cold Cell, Union Gallery, London, UK 2008 Metamorphoses, Korean Trajectories, Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Paris, France Invisible Art Exhibition, Korean Cultural Center, Beijing, China Lustwarande 08 – Wanderland, Park de Oude Warande, Tilburg, Netherlands Today’s Korean Art - The World of Expression, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul, Korea One Fine Day, Rodin Gallery (currently PLATEAU), Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea Venice Biennale Korean Artists Drawing Exhibition, Sejong Center, Seoul, Korea 2007 Fast Break, PKM Gallery Beijing, Beijing, China Am Schlimmsten: Nicht im Sommer sterben, Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden, Germany 2006 Three Stories, PKM Gallery, Seoul, Korea Bêtes de style, Musée de Design et d’arts Appliqués Contemporains, Lausanne, Switzerland 2005 Parallel Realities: Asian Art Now, 3rd Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, Fukuoka, Japan J’en rêve, Foundation Cartier pour l’art Contemporain, Paris, France Secret Beyond the Door, curated by Sunjung Kim, 51st Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy Elegance of Silence, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan 2003 Comic Release, Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA Museum at a Playground 2, Artsonje Center, Seoul, Korea Facing Korea: Demirrorized, de Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam, Netherlands 2002 Fantasia, East Modern Art Centre, Beijing, China Under Construction: New Dimensions of Asian Art, Japan Foundation Forum, Tokyo, Japan P_a_u_s_e, curated by Charles Esche, Project 1, 4th Gwangju Biennale, Korea 2001 Next Generation / Art Contemporain d’Asie, Passage de Retz, Paris, France Fantasia, Space iMA, Seoul, Korea 2000 波(Wave) - Together in Life, Busan International Contemporary Art Festival, Busan, Korea 1999 Mixer & Juicer, Arko Art Center (formerly Marronnier Art Center, Korean Culture & Arts Foundation), Seoul, Korea 1998 Blaspheme, Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea RESIDENCIES 2013 Doosan Residency New York, New York

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