HYONG NAM AHN

ABSOLUTE SPACE (NO LONGER IN TIME)

 

NOV 30, 2023 - JAN 7, 2024

AP SPACE Gallery, NYC (555 West 25th St.) 

 

CURATED BY BEATRICE CAPRIOLI

 

 

AP SPACE Gallery is delighted to present "Absolute Space (No Longer in Time)", the first comprehensive retrospective of Korean artist Hyong Nam Ahn curated by Beatrice Caprioli.

 

For over four decades, Hyong Nam Ahn bridged the gap between artist, sculptor, and inventor, playing a variety of different roles in the creation of a wide oeuvre.
Ahn's center of gravity relies on the coexistence between pictorial flatness and sculptural condition. In an effort to blur the boundaries between painting and sculpture, the artist condenses forms, materials, and sources of light into unbounded, homogeneous entities that go far beyond being objects, almost feeling like earthly phenomena. Whether it is metal, neon, a stone, or a wire, at stake in Hyong Nam Ahn’s work is the activated space between artwork, environment, and viewer, the latest ascribed to a great participatory role. It is through this three-way interchange that Ahn conjures ideas of time and space, and explores the complex trinity through juxtapositions of natural materials with manmade construction.

 

 

 

Addressing together two-dimensional and three-dimensional spaces by means of a fine sensitiveness and an elaborate formative system, the artist explores the possibilities of movement as a force and power that instills an endless process of growth within the work of art. This growth might be revealed through the spectator’s actions, linked to his movements, or it might grow itself from within, responding spontaneously to the environment. Thus Ahn’s practice, finding historical legitimacy in early examples of mechanized motion and in Kinetic Art, invites the spectator to activate the object’s dynamic presence and to cross the barrier between visible things and the unseen; between matter and energy; between words, sounds, colors; between the work of art and nature; between the work of art and the viewer.

 

 

https://www.instagram.com/apspace_official

 

Hyong Nam Ahn (b. 1955, Seoul, Korea) has worked chiefly in the USA for the past 40 years and has expressed the relationships among technology, human beings, and art in his works through varied concepts of figurativeness. The artist’s use of technology and industrial materials such as neon lights in combination with natural matters and motifs are more of a reference to the dichotomy of our environment that encompasses both the manmade and the natural rather than a critique on industrialization or consumerism. The various elements seem fractured yet balanced, engaging the viewer into a sophisticated dialogue about philosophy, nature, progress, technology, and spirituality.

 

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Korean-USA relations was celebrated, he was selected to be the representative artist of South Korea together with Paik, Nam June.

https://www.galleryapspace.com

 

 

 

"예술은 자유를 추구한다. 그것은 어린아이와 같은 자유스럽고 천진난만한 세계를 추구하는 것이다. 나는 작품을 만들면서 자유를 느끼고, 작품을 보는 사람들이 그 자유로움을 느끼기를 기대한다.” -안형남-

*[뉴욕의 한국인 미술가들-조각가·화가 안형남] 관객들과 '자유로움' 소통 추구, 뉴욕중앙일보 박종원 기자, 2018. 

https://news.koreadaily.com/2008/11/14/life/artculture/736261.html