Seon Ghi Bahk: Fiction and the Fabricated Image
The Korean artist’s explosive charcoal installation at Miami’s Zadok Gallery
Nylon threads and neatly erupted charcoal bits take over Miami’s Zadok Gallery in “Fiction and the Fabricated Image“—an exhibition that opens this weekend by the South Korean artist Seon Ghi Bahk. The show explores the interplay of nature and civilized culture. In stringing up palm-sized pieces of charcoal, Bahk is able to formulate familiar architectural shapes at various levels of completion. A thrilling tension is uncovered when trying to understand these disintegrating installations, in light of the ploddingly delicate manner with which they have been assembled.
So what does a lump of coal have to do with a doric column? The artist’s work doesn’t invite this sort of literal parallel—rather, questions regarding our historic debt to nature are thrown up for the viewer to mull over like so many suspended particles. In the end, Bahk leaves viewers with work that perfectly dances the line between the representational and the aspirational.
Zadok Gallery has been a reliably impressive member of Miami’s local art scene in recent years, and this show is a must-see. The exhibition kicks off with a reception tomorrow, Saturday 8 March 2014, from 6PM and will run through April.
Images courtesy of Zadok Gallery
