Poster image of 《The Future Won't Happen on Its Own》 © Amado Art Space
Amado Art Space presents 《The Future Won't Happen on Its Own》, a solo
exhibition by artist Chunsoo Kim, on view through June 28.
The proposition driving Chunsoo Kim’s
latest solo exhibition originates from a statement in Peter Thiel’s
Zero to One: “The future won’t happen on its own.”
Yet Kim, whose practice has explored the
instability of social structures embedded within the myth of technological
progress through the medium of photography, appropriates this phrase
ironically, questioning the technocratic faith that still lingers within it.
The works presented in this
exhibition—including the new ‘Seoul’ series, as well as recent and previously
unseen works such as ‘AI Mod,’ ‘Gariwangsan,’ and ‘Alps–Mint-Colored Sofa,’ all
produced over the past decade—are distorted in peculiar ways.
Landscapes captured with digital cameras
are warped and replicated; images become trapped within obsolete
black-and-white printing processes, gradually fading or disappearing beneath
layers of white material.
At cutting-edge technology fairs, the
subjects photographed with once-advanced cameras consist only of scratches and
debris, while the images themselves are destined for disposal. Meanwhile,
landscapes and objects purportedly recorded over long periods seem to drift
through indeterminate temporalities, making it impossible to locate exactly
when they were inscribed.
Kim’s circular question mark appears to
arrive before us only to rearrange the order of inquiry and pose an additional
question in return: How must time pass in order for it to become the future?
