Installation view of 《Born Under a Bad Sign》 ©Mihakgwan
Mihakgwan presents its reopening exhibition
《Born Under a Bad Sign》 at its
new space in Hongje-dong, Seodaemun-gu through April 5.
This exhibition emphasizes the idea that a
“bad sign,” perceived as an intuitive sensation that arrives without causal
grounds or probability, is an indispensable element of life—transformed into a
heightened sensibility of existence.
An ominous sign evokes fear and trembling;
throughout human history it has appeared as an inescapable signal of despair,
like a prophecy of catastrophe that endlessly repeats. It is an intuition or
atmosphere that precedes clear symbolic explanation—an inexpressible
existential sensation that resists language.
When unexpected coincidences occur
repeatedly, we experience a fundamental anxiety that “something is going
wrong,” along with the illusion of a causal relationship seemingly designed by
someone. Through different media and artistic languages, the five participating
artists give form to this existential tremor.
Installation view of 《Born Under a Bad Sign》 ©Mihakgwan
Eunsil Lee examines
repressed primal instincts and desires within human beings, translating the
psychic waves that arise from the subject’s inner world into abstract scenes
that evoke social taboos.
Park Wunggyu delicately
depicts ambiguous sensations triggered by negativity. By adopting the stylistic
conventions of religious painting to portray insects or grotesque creatures,
his work provokes ambivalent emotions toward the subject while exploring the
boundary between the sacred and the impure.
Dew Kim investigates the
affinities between queerness and religious ritual, creating a kind of
shamanistic stage for marginalized beings. In his works, the strange game of
cat-and-mouse between sadism and masochism frequently appears, transforming
secular suffering into a sacred ecstasy and becoming a political arena where
the hierarchies of domination and submission are continually entangled.
Installation view of 《Born Under a Bad Sign》 ©Mihakgwan
Miryu Yoon reveals
abstract impressions by combining the fleeting expressions and movements of
figures captured in a moment. Moving beyond the concrete depiction of a
subject, she translates the distinctive formal qualities that emerge from the
interaction between figure and environment into abstract forms, thereby evoking
a sense of unfamiliarity from otherwise familiar subjects.
Meanwhile, Yi Minji, who
has long focused on the optical gap between “what is seen” and “what remains
unseen,” primarily works with photography to capture ghostly sensations that
exist around us yet remain elusive.
The exhibition title is inspired by Albert
King’s blues classic Born Under a Bad Sign. In the
exhibition’s introductory text, Mihakgwan director Seulbi Lee interprets the
refrain—“If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all”—as
suggesting that luck and misfortune form an inevitable symmetry, like two sides
of the same coin that together constitute one’s existence.
Accordingly, the exhibition approaches the
“bad sign” that emerges amid uncertainty not merely as a despairing premonition
of an impending end, but as an inevitable transformation that signals the
beginning of something new.
Participating Artists:
Dew Kim, Park Wunggyu, Miryu Yoon, Yi Minji, Eunsil Lee
