Blurring Tech and Lyricism: Retrospective of Sculptor Ahn Hyung-nam at Moran Museum
Creatrip Team
3 months ago
Sculptor Ahn Hyung-nam’s retrospective “Indivisible: The Narratives of Ahn Hyung-nam” runs through the 28th at Moran Museum in Namyangju. The show gathers works reflecting his family history and diasporic identity, marking his first large-scale retrospective since 2014. Internationally recognized since exhibiting with Nam June Paik in 1982, Ahn is known for kinetic sculptures that explore light, sound, time and space. The exhibition expands across the museum, nearby Baekryeonsa (a Buddhist hermitage) and outdoor terraces, featuring large works made in the U.S., Venetian pieces like “Eve and Adam,” his father’s poems and his drawings — all testifying to an artist shaped by life abroad. A monumental ink painting “The Fairy and the Woodcutter” on a former temple hall wall is paired with Shin Ji-ho’s media art and Lee Su-hyun’s sound installation to evoke the philosophical theme of “things you can never hold forever.” Installations such as “Jacob’s Ladder,” constructed from old hanok (traditional Korean house) roof tiles and a dragon head, metaphorically locate a “flexible point” between vision and certainty. Curator Kate Shin of New York’s Waterfall Art Foundation oversaw the project, and critics note how Ahn’s blend of neon, objects and handcraft “breaks the boundary between technology and lyricism” while tracing diasporic Korean modern history.
