Remembering, or Forgetting

Arario Gallery inaugurates the opening of its fourth exhibition venue on April 24th of 2018 with its new group exhibition <Remembering, or Forgetting>. Comprising seven Asian artists across four countries in their mid-thirties to early forties, the exhibition features works by Asami Kiyokawa and Atsuro Terunuma from Japan, Uji (Hahan) Handoko Eko Saputro from Indonesia, China’s Xu Bacheng, and Kim Inbai, Kwon Hayoun, and Don Sunpil from Korea.

<Remembering, or Forgetting> departs from the origin point of ‘imagination’. Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), in response to a question on what imagination is, said that it “is generated from remembering, and forgetting.” Claiming that there exist numerous holes made of oblivion in our minds, he diagnosed that said cavities are gradually filled in as we constantly spin out stories about disappearing things. Then, those who bear the label ‘artists or writers’ ones who hold on to memories in their constant vicissitudes along the boundaries of the murky mires of oblivion that persist despite our will by depicting these ‘disappearing things’ in their own way? Is imagination kindled in this very process? This exhibition identifies artists as people who speak of the things lost, and aim to unfold the imaginaries that they incessantly draw from these boundaries, irrespective of context.

Artist Asami Kiyokawa introduces works whereby she excavates the unconscious strata undergirding specific people or objects based on her memories or feelings, expressing them in the form of embroidery and sewing. In a similar manner, Atsuro Terunuma is an artist who explores the relationship between the visible and the invisible beneath the surface. His signature pieces in the exhibition demonstrates the contemporary individual’s visual compulsion and insecurities amidst the excessive visual stimuli of our time, along with his desire to escape from the constant barrage of visual input. Indonesian artist Uji (Hahan) Handoko Eko Saputro pulls out memories of growing up in the midst of the art market’s boom in the mid to late 2000s, substituting recollections of hope and despair with critiques of contemporary capital, delivering it through unique applications of comics-style techniques. The society depicted by Chinese artist Xu Bacheng is a space founded on his critique of contemporary China, wherein he offers a vivid portrait of slightly distorted or extremely sensitive characters who accentuate his imaginative capacity, generating a landscape of mixed personalities, metaphors, and allegorical forms that leak impressions of repression and confinement. Kim Inbai’s works questions the circuits of established structures, rules, and thoughts as part of an ongoing inquiry, inviting the viewers to expand their cognitive purview. Kwon Hayoun recasts the DMZ (demilitarized zone) as a real yet unrealistic place comprising varied facets of individual memories rather than an overarching history of grand narratives through her imaginative touches. Lastly, Don Sunpil showcases works whereby he inordinately discards objects and the chunks of memories they carry, triggering desires that attempt to pierce through and escape the structure at the boundaries of remembering and forgetting, or the signified and utterance.