Dean Project is thrilled to present the gallery’s annual invited curator exhibition, Jack in the Space, curated by Heng-Gil Han of the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning.

Jack in the Space features the work of Hyong Nam Ahn, Lishan Chang, Kyung Woo Han, Janelle Iglesias, Eun Hyung Kim, and Hyungsub Shin.

“What happens if Jackson Pollock’s drips get unraveled? What happens if physical spaces exist between the paint layers? Pollack’s drip painting presents a singular surface of compressed time and material density. When that compression of space and time is physically unzipped, we would get layers of time-fragments spread out one after another in depth. Will this physical space appear confusing in total disarray filled with objects placed randomly here and there without a clear organizing principle? Or in contrary, will the space (or its atmosphere) feel organic, breathing, and growing—that is, biological in a word? This exhibition collects the works by six artists who are concerned with constructing a corporeal space that activates bodily experience. They examine ways of making the illusory space of painting be felt rather than being seen. The exhibition is not a show that presents an optical space of disembodied gaze, but a ground offering a physical space that can be entered in the present terms of here and now. The exhibition engages in a critical dialogue with the traditional reading of an exhibition as a visual text. It attempts to explore the semiotic operation of that particular kind of text in relation to what it does to us and how we make use of it for a greater good.

The exhibition also debates on its semantic value. All physical reality is a mere appearance of something else that is truly real. There exists an idea behind the physical entertainments, and the viewer’s physical interaction with the work is a way of communicating the idea. The tangible physicality of the space gets intellectualized, digested, and symbolized; it is lifted off to mean something else that can be seen only by the eyes of the mind. The result is a somewhat contradictory space that is physical yet conceptual—a physical manifestation of disembodied thoughts and contemplation. Although what is communicated is not clear, the exhibition leaves the possibility of semantic interpretations of Pollock’s liberating action open instead of remaining dogmatic.” Heng-Gil Han 2010