Jehyun shin
Artist / CEO of ArtSpaceSeochon Gallery
Jehyun Shin (b. 1982) uses personal events and contradictions in Korean society to develop the results of long-term research into media such as video, publication, installation, and photography. He expresses the various interests he has acquired over the past decades in diverse methods, such as by holding a clothing workshop or making musical instruments collected from a particular region. Through these activities, he covers local issues and speaks about social and political problems from a feminist perspective.
Recently, he has focused on interdisciplinary art performances with physicists, choreographers, and experimental musicians. He has participated in many domestic and international group exhibitions, including Unforeseen (MMCA Seoul, Korea, 2015), Millefeuille de Camélia (Arko Art Center, Seoul, Korea, 2016), and Artistic Survival Tactics (Alternative Space LOOP, Seoul, Korea, 2017).
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2016 MA, FineArt, SungkyunkwanUniversity, Seoul, Korea
2010 BA, FineArt, SungkyunkwanUniversity, Seoul, Korea
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2023 - Present | Adjunction Professor/teaching disability art at Sungkyunkwan University
2024 - current | CEO of Gallery ArtspaceSeochon
2024 | Curating Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture Arts Support Project exhibition
2023 | IEUM Creative Academy (Sungkyunkwan University and the Arts Center for the Disabled were collaborating to conduct a 7-month workshop in the Department of Art, Film, Dance, and Acting)
2023 | Future Wide Open joint planning and exhibition curating (collaborating with various artists such as ITZZA ITZZA Ko Jae-pil and Jeong Jun-hee to develop and exhibit the world of Lapguk, made by disabled artist Kim Dong-Hyeon into game media art)
2021 | Participating in collaborative art field research for people with developmental disabilities
2021 | Participating in autism spectrum art exhibitions such as ‘The World is Coloring’
2019 | <Dream Blossom Academy>, the Jung-gu Center for the Disabled People, Autism Spectrum Artist Training Workshop
2018~2024 | ITZZA ITZZA Social Cooperative Activities
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Selected Solo Exhibition
2023 <Hidden Side2023 Munich sound>, Space n,n, Munich, Germany
2023 <Sound of Time>, 1000Gallery, Dolomiti Italy
2023 <The Blind Watchmaker>, SAPY, Seoul
2023 <A Transparent Story>, Cheyul Gallery, Seoul
2023 <Deep Decode Incode>, Space SAJIK, Seoul
2022 <Sound of Island>, Gong-Won,Seoul
2022 <Yun-Sl> EveGallery, Seoul
2021 <The Shape of Water>, NodeulIsland MultihallForest, Seoul
2021 <HiddeSide>, RE:PLAT, Seoul
2019 <Text Scape>, CR Collective, Seoul
2018 <Diotima Diorama>, KAIST Gallery, Seoul
2015 <English Order>, Take out drawing, Seoul
2014 <Healthy Kit>, 175 Gallery, Seoul
2011 <ARIN Project>, InsaArt Space, Seoul
2011 <3PM>, Moonshinart Gallery, Seoul
2010 <Late-night movie>, Alternative space Gate, Daejeon
2010 <Play mob>, Artspace Hue, Seoul
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Selected Group Exhibitions
2021 Borderless site, Culture Station Seoul 284, Seoul, Korea
2020 Cicatrix, Cindy Rucker Gallery, New york, USA
2018 Museum MusBusking Soma Museum, Seoul, Korea
2017 Battle X Looms, Total Museum. Seoul, Korea.
2016 Unforeseen, MMCA, Seoul, Korea.
2016 Mille-feuille de camélia, Arko Art Center, Seoul, Korea
2016 Staring at you Staring at me, Ygrec-ENSAPC, Paris, France.
2015 DMZ Project, Dongsong& Art Sonje. Seoul, Korea.
2015 Somplexity, Seogyo seoulartspace, Seoul, Korea
2014 Super Romantics , Daegu Art Factory, Daegu, Korea
2014 Secretly greatly, SeMA, Seoul, Korea
2013 TRAF, Hongik museum of art, Seoul, Korea
2012 Struggle, Seo-gyo seoulartspace, Seoul, Korea
2012 Soundscape Wuminartcenter, Cheongju, Korea
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•Selection of Residency and Public Offering Support Projects
2022 Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Commendation
2022 Selected by the Arts council korea(arko) as a Creative Course
2022 Selected by the Arts council korea(arko) for Arts-Data Matching Project
2022, GoyangResidency, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art(MMCA)
Visit artspaceseochon
7 Jahamum-ro, 10 gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea
artwork
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Wooden ship (made of lumber from a 40-year-old house), variable size "Recently, I repaired an abandoned old house and turned it into an art studio from August to September 2021. Instead of tearing off the old layers and building new ones, the former owners chose to cover up the old ones with the new ones. As a consequence of this decision, dozens of layers were found to be stacked over time. The waste, ranging from peeled-off wooden walls and column structures, weighed more than one ton, but I couldn't throw all this old lumber away. While repairing a certain room, I found a small painting frame in between the walls that was falling off because the wallpaper on top was oily. It was a picture of a small boat, and on the side was a pledge that stated it wanted to make this boat float on the Han River within the following year. The moment I saw that pledge, I decided to fulfil it and built a boat out of all the waste I collected from the house. The Han River was only 20 meters away from the house. I put wheels and a small motor on the boat and looked around Banpo Bridge for about 3~4km. The view of Seoul I saw while riding on the boat on the river gave me a different experience than when I usually see it. The artificially blocked walls, the sounds bridges make while under them, and the appearance of homeless people living on the riverside aroused my curiosity about the Han River. In a way, it can be seen that the Han River has changed with Korea's modern and contemporary economic history, and Nodeul Island, where the sand was dug up to make roads around it, has now become an island supporting the bridge.
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In this exhibition, I focused on sugar cane, an icon of plantation agriculture, and sugar, an important part of the evolution of taste in the history of Japanese and European imperialism and economic monopolization that still exists in this region. In addition to the installation, the artist in this work displays a video of transforming candy into sugar. Throughout the exhibition, the artist plans to repeatedly draw and destroy the fragments of the texts related to the economic monopolization in Asia that has existed since the age of imperialism. In the process, he uses sugar on the museum floor as a mandala, a Buddhist symbol. The scattered symbols are the names of locations where sexual harassment took place in the Korean art world. During the exhibition period, when people step on it and the symbol collapses, the artist restores it. When the audience asks questions about the meaning of the work, the artists answer them sincerely.
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“Trailing. Drawing Performance in 50 Days” is a video depicting an artist living in a post-apocalyptic world in the near future, filmed in locations such as Yangsan, Guri, and Seoul. For this work, he has bred chickens with his father and brought them to the exhibition. During the exhibition, I held a performance behind the canvas made out of henhouse mesh, chasing the shadows. I have also conducted a workshop on nuclear power for children, and the result was published in video and book form. This work shows the artist whose family lives near a nuclear power plant as the most direct way of video and performance to signal the danger of a major disaster. He borrows the form of Movie B to show the problem of the Korean nuclear power plant cartel in the same form as Godzilla. Fake acts such as plays are actually happening in Korea, and the ideas of these seemingly unrealistic children are rather the most realistic alternatives. The names of the 5,000 people who disappear in an hour are the names of the author's family and the people around the nuclear power plant.
finding mari
2002 - PRESENT
Finding Marie is a work that historically investigates incidents in daily life that ordinary people are not familiar with and solves them with her works. The author traced the case of marijuana, which had been cultivated for 2,000 B.C.E. and used as clothing, paper, oil, and painkillers to humankind, and discovered that laws and forces were involved beyond the scope of common sense. However, rather than strongly resisting the irrationalities and paradoxes of this law and power, the artist avoids this law and walks on a tightrope between law and art as if playing a treasure hunt game. It tells people where wild marijuana grows or abstracts the numbers or graphs from the history of marijuana (the area where marijuana was produced in the past and the Amazon jungle is destroyed, the money earned by chaebols in the U.S. pulp up and artificial fibre industries after the cannabis ban, etc.) in one painting. In addition, there are artificial kits that can be used to grow hemp by borrowing the form of installation sculptures and oriental paintings depicting things to be careful about when smoking hemp. All of these works have themes and attitudes that violate Korean law and ethics, but they avoid the law through the form of artwork.
The video map, which visits areas where wild hemp is located, is a music video that visits a woman named "Marie," her first love as a child. Even if it is a legal problem, it is only a work of art and fiction, and it is possible to argue that it was a place where wild hemp grew naturally. In the past, art was chosen as a way to resist, mock, and avoid rather than conform and follow laws and ethics. Especially when it comes to unreasonable and contradictory laws and order (Jeff Kuns' 'Heaven', Okin Collective's gentrification work, etc.). In Search of Marie, the powerful and direct language and arguments used by ordinary activist writers (Hans Hake, Barbara Kruger, Korean minjung art, etc.) have abandoned the form of criticizing the target and made a timid work to avoid the punishment of the law and all kinds of excuses in case of lawsuits. Through this, it aims to make the audience think twice about the sensitive subject of marijuana.
Finding MARI Daegu 10, 2017 Acrylic paint behind acrylic panel, baechae technique, 90 x 65cm
Finding MARI Incheon 2, 2018 Acrylic on triple acrylic panal , baechae technique, 90 x 65cm
Finding MARI Incheon 2, 2018 Acrylic on triple acrylic panal , baechae technique, 90 x 65cm
Finding MARI - Jeju 8,2019 Acrylic on opaque acrylic panel, baechae technique, 73 x 53 cm
Finding MARI - Incheon 8, 2018 Acrylic paint behind acrylic panel, baechae technique, 90 x 65 cm
Finding MARI Jeju 9, 2019 Acrylic on opaque acrylic panal, Rechargeable LED, baechae technique, 73 x 53 cm
Finding MARI Incheon 5, 2018 Acrylic paint behind acrylic panel, baechae technique, 76 x 60 cm
Finding MARI Jeju 7, 2019 Acrylic paint behind acrylic panel, baechae technique, 41 x 51cm
Finding MARI Jeju 5, 2015 Acrylic paint behind acrylic panel, baechae technique, 90.9 x 60.6 cm
Finding MARI Jeju 15, 2020 Acrylic paint behind acrylic panel, baechae technique, 90.9 x 65.1 cm
Installtion view Gallery May (2019)
The Shape of the Mind 2015
The instrument activates when two people’s brain waves align while talking and sitting on a chair for 10 minutes. When both of them are in a good mood, "Alpha High" is detected, and the doll dances and sings. When both feel anxious, "beta low" is detected, and the pot makes a shaking sound for 30 seconds. Mexican film director Guillermo Del Toro's 2013 Pacific Rim shows two pilots connecting brain waves to move a giant robot. This setting is similar to the process of two different genders checking, sharing, and falling in love with each other. The human brain operates through the connection and interaction of brain cells, neurons, and synapses, and electrical signals mobilized in the process are called brain waves. Brain waves are divided into delta, set, alpha, and gamma waves according to frequency. Beta waves emerge during logical thinking and problem-solving, alpha waves emerge when comfortable, and gamma waves are when set waves are nervous or excited.
I created an electroencephalogram called Neurosky that allows two people to play an instrument when they feel the same wave at the same time. When two people feel comfortable at the same time, the beta wave grows and plays a comfortable sound, and when theta wave rises, it makes a high and unstable sound. Of course, there is no sound if two people do not feel the same emotion simultaneously. I saw flirting as a process in which two or more aligned minds share a similar state to each other's homogeneity to reduce boundaries and heterogeneity. In addition, through a digital and rational process of measuring brain waves, an emotion-sharing performance device was created that played sound in an emotional and analog manner. This is considered close to disclosure in that thumb entails similarity and proximity without causality in the area of emotions that cannot be identified and measured.
arin project
2005 - 2019
A renowned archaeologist, Steven Mithen, who wrote The Singing Neanderthals, said that in ancient times, the human act of making musical instruments and music served as a key element in perpetuating the human species. In other words, music as well as dance played a pivotal role in enhancing social bonds between individuals and groups and creating communal identity. In connection with this. Artist Shin Jehyun contemplated ways of allowing people to easily make musical instruments, eventually leading him to go on with the Arin Project in 2007. The term "Arin Project', Arin is an abbreviation for Architectural Instrument, which refers to a workshop project designed to take advantage of wasted building materials and furniture to make musical instruments. This inspired the artist to make atypical musical instruments, each of which came to produce an inherent sound that they had carried in a place where they used to be. The artist reached a point where he could archive local sounds using musical instruments. His instruments are never bound by professional music play or other rules like harmonics. For Mithen, what matters is to offera methodology allowing anyone on earth to play musical instruments, enjoy them and thereby enrich their lives.
DeMilitarised-Zone Project
sounds of war 2015
During the concert, I used a computer to write about my opinions on the Korean War, the DMZ, and the city of Dongsong. While I am typing, an art piece made of toy guns will react to certain words and make the guns shoot. Typing acts as a trigger to shoot, and what I write is the name of big companies in our daily lives pretending to be peaceful, although they make money from war. The plastic bullets will hit a piano, drum, violin, and other instruments and create sounds. The computer keyboard appears like piano keys, and the letters are like the notes. My hands are not touching any instruments so I don’t have any angst about playing, as I am only writing a text. While writing text is mundane, the toy guns create unpredictable and uncontrollable movements. As I belong to a generation that didn't experience the Korean War, I believe it is impossible to speak about the subject authoritatively. This installation with instruments and text expresses the detached nature of these past events.
Demilitarized-Zone Project
alarming number of
There are things near the DMZ that one cannot find in Seoul, such as the big red sign boards facing the sky with numbers on them which correspond to the distance in meters from the DMZ. These signboards inform aeroplanes and helicopters of the precise distance from the DMZ so as to warn them not to enter the DMZ. My work previously focused on subjects like marijuana, nuclear energy, gentrification, etc. Consequently, I was often asked if I were a ‘commie’. All these words related to politics, such as pro-North Korea, left-wing, anti-communism, demilitarization, rebellion, patriotism, etc, make me wonder about their true meanings and roles today in 2015. To me, I think the real DMZ exists between people who use these words and the people whom they consider as “the other.” As someone who’s never experienced the war, I don’t really empathize with North and South Korea on issues that are used for political purposes, including the problems surrounding the DMZ. While the DMZ today has become a geographical and physical tourist attraction, demonstrations and protests regarding modern issues exist for me as a more powerful form of DMZ in today’s context. This project began with installing and photographing the number of signs mentioned above at locations that I consider as the DMZ in our everyday lives: sites of the Yongsan Disaster, Kori Nuclear Power Plant, Miryang Electricity Plant, and Four Major Rivers Project. The numbers show, in meters, the distance between the signs and the everyday DMZs. The nine photographs that were taken in nine locations are individual sources of information about the distance from the conflict regions but also make up my cell phone number. I will explain this project to the viewers who called my number, but this invisible distance of the telephone will resemble the symbolic distance between the DMZ, and the conflict is as.
