Suzanne Song: Recurrent Measures

The Williamsburg Biannual and Gallery Baton are pleased to present Recurrent Measures, a solo exhibition by Korean American artist Suzanne Song. The exhibition debuts a selection of new pumice paintings alongside shaped canvas paintings as well as two site-specific installations. As Song explains, “Recurrent Measures brings together works that return to one another across my practice. Ideas reappear in different form, and the development is not linear. The exhibition follows these repeated adjustments.”

The pumice series is an iterative exploration of space, materiality, surface, and edge conditions. “I started using pumice when I was working on flat paintings that relied on airbrushed shadows to create depth,” Song notes. “I thought the relief might replace the airbrushed shadow. But instead, I ended up using both the actual shadow from the built-up surface and the painted shadow.” Repeated configurations allow the artist to investigate how slight alterations affect perceptions of depth and movement. A limited palette of monochromatic and muted colors focuses the viewer’s attention on compositions and forms that seem to quietly fold, unfold, shift, and become unstable.

Upon entering the building, visitors first encounter both installations from afar. To the left is Open Array, a window piece in which the artist overlays her pleat-like pattern directly onto the glass surface, engaging both its transparent and reflective qualities; changing light conditions animate the work throughout the day. The window piece hints at Recurrence and Near Eclipse, paintings hanging in the adjacent gallery. To the right, visitors look down upon Blank, a trompe-l’œil installation on the lower level. From a distance, it is difficult to determine whether the work is two- or three-dimensional. Its color and composition reference Song’s Interstices painting series, on view in the lower-level galleries.

Once inside, visitors experience Bends, a large painting of two bent forms that mirror and turn away from each other. Created over three years (2020–23), Bends establishes the dynamic dichotomy that sets the tone for the exhibition and welcomes visitors. Earlier works that influenced this direction are presented in the upper-level gallery.

Visually reminiscent of Op Art and Minimalism, though grounded in trompe-l’œil technique, Song’s work examines the phenomenon of perception: Do you trust what you see? Is seeing really knowing? What is the nature and limit of human knowledge? What differentiates belief and faith from fact and knowledge? The questions underpinning Song’s art evoke a rich history of philosophical thought, most notably George Berkeley’s famous tenet esse est percipi (“to be is to be perceived”), which posits that the external world is contingent upon the perceiver and that objects do not exist independently of the mind perceiving them, as well as art critic John Berger’s assertion in his seminal text Ways of Seeing that “seeing comes before words.”

Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Suzanne Song lives and works in New York City. She studied at Clemson University (BFA), the Maryland Institute College of Art, and the Yale School of Art (MFA). She has presented solo exhibitions internationally at Gallery Baton (Seoul, South Korea) and White Cube (London, United Kingdom), and her work has been included in group exhibitions at The Drawing Center, Smack Mellon, and the Hunter College Art Galleries, among others. She has been awarded fellowships from the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Her work is held in notable public and private collections, including the RISD Museum, the Montecito Contemporary Art Collection (MCAC), the Parkseobo Foundation (Seoul), and the KD Collection (Hong Kong).