Installation view of 《Liquid Modernity》 ©BB&M
BB&M presents 《Liquid
Modernity》, a group exhibition featuring Three artists
born in the 1990s —Jo Jae, Haevan Lee, and Sikyung Sung—who are garnering
attention in the Korean and international art scenes. The exhibition runs
through January 10, 2026.
Having come of age in a bewildering
globalized environment inundated by information and a ubiquitous culture of
consumption, these artists have developed perceptual systems attuned to a
contemporary world shaped by accelerated structural shifts.
Jo Jae delicately restores layers of
sensibility that have been erased within the fast pace of everyday life. She
collects fragments of objects—such as urban remnants, mechanical parts, and
packaging materials—molds them by hand, converts them into digital images, and
repeatedly transfers these prints onto canvas. Through this process, she
explores the transitions between materiality and immateriality.
This continual movement between matter and
image becomes an attempt to recalibrate the perceptual rhythms weakened by the
accelerated tempo of liquid modernity.
Installation view of 《Liquid Modernity》 ©BB&M
Haevan Lee constructs landscapes where
reality and imagination intersect, drawing from scenes captured in liminal
zones. In her ‘Battleground’ series, dispersed paint marks and faint traces of
light reveal a psychological terrain that appears calm on the surface yet is
permeated by tension and suppressed emotion beneath.
Her landscapes visualize the precariousness
of boundaries that can no longer remain solid within liquid modernity, creating
a perceptual fissure where reality and unreality, stillness and unease coexist.
Sikyung Sung explores the tension between
spontaneity and structure, and between chance and order, through his free
brushwork and bold use of color. Rather than presenting concrete forms, he
constructs unpredictable scenes through the collision and calibration of lines
and planes. The new works in this exhibition unfold in two currents: one of
liberated abstraction and another of restrained abstraction.
Sung’s practice reveals the variations
produced by the rhythm of chance emerging where fixed rules have dissolved,
translating the unstable world of liquid modernity into a painterly vibration.
Installation view of 《Liquid Modernity》 ©BB&M
Shaped by these foundational shifts, the
three artists turn away from predetermined formal vocabularies, devising
instead adaptable structures and exploratory methods that register the
velocity, unpredictability, and fragmentation of contemporary experience.
Working through the ostensibly traditional
medium of painting, they reinterpret sensation, materiality, memory, and
image-making that constitute today’s visual field while probing the unstable
ontology confronted by the individual subject.
Participating
Artists: Jo
Jae, Haevan Lee, Sikyung Sung
