Push, Pull, Drag

After proudly opening its doors in spring 2016, Platform-L Contemporary Art Center is pleased to announce Push, Pull, Drag, a group exhibition of emerging Korean artists on view from August 30 to November 13, 2016.

Push, Pull, Drag emphasizes the immediate experience of the viewer’s encounters with each work, rather than positing a guiding theme or delineating any specific conceptual approach. The three verbs which comprise its title—Push, Pull, Drag—offer a sense of movement yet nonetheless leave questions about the exhibited works unanswered and open to interpretation, in addition to serving as a catalyst for considerations of the viewer’s processes of reception and appreciation of works of art. It is hoped that visitors to the exhibition, as well as artists and curators will approach with these works as active participants in their own engagement with movement. For this exhibition, artists Gim Ikhyun, Hejum Bä, Yi Yunyi, Jeong Seyoung and Ikjung Cho will present newly commissioned works of photography, drawing, video, installation and performance. 

Born out of a question about creating an exhibition without a theme, Push, Pull, Drag serves as platform for exploring the curiosity surrounding an individual’s perception and interpretation of art, rather than flatly rejecting any curatorial drive for thematic structure. The exhibition seeks to maintain the tension between what can be comprehended and what remains unknown within each work. This enables an array of open-ended individual experiences, free from any pedagogical texts or specified descriptions which might influence the viewers’ perceptions of the exhibition. Artists working in a range of media are brought together as a group in this method of exhibition-making wherein the inherent characteristics of each work are preserved while simultaneously allowing space for divergence from any particular frame of reference for the viewer’s engagement. How, then, can one’s intuitive, immediate experience be accentuated beyond the conventional objectification of a given artwork?

As opposed to assuming an omniscient viewpoint and imposing a single prescribed path through the exhibition, Push, Pull, Drag adopts a loosening of landscapes which are themselves comprised of various and minute elements. Encompassing the second and third floor galleries as well as the builiding’s machine room located 18 meters below ground level, the exhibition permits viewers to navigate individualized routes in multiple directions and across diverse viewing environments. The way in which each element assumes a unique place within the exhibition’s slack linkages subsequently facilitates public engagement with these aspects of the works as active participants each engage in their own way-finding through movement.

Push, Pull, Drag: these verbs trigger musings on the movements they entail, the subjects and objects involved, and perhaps even the distance and direction of their implied actions. Here, the subjects can be understood as all exhibition visitors, inclusive of participating artists and curators. An investigation into the viewer’s curiosity would certainly seem worthwhile, therefore, having been initiated via a recognition of the perceived distance and unfamiliarity which separates art from life. And one may reasonably expect, at the very source of that budding curiosity, the possibility of authentic and meaningful discourse with the artworks in the exhibition.