Joonhong Min: Future’s Present

Opening: Thu 19 Apr, 6-9pm
Exhibition: 20 April – 14 July
SPACE Mare Street
Free & all welcome

Selected from the Future SPACE open call, Joonhong Min’s solo exhibition presents a remembered, current and imagined future city. The artist was born in the city, has lived in different cities and feels he is destined to always live in the city. As an urban dweller, he draws his subject matter from objects and settings found in the metropolis and from his personal memories that were formed within the city. At the core of the artist’s work is a meditation on isolation—both voluntarily isolating oneself through the act of drawing and being isolated by one’s surroundings due to the fierce competition in contemporary society.  

You will often find Joonhong Min walking and collecting commonplace waste objects that have been discarded on the street. His focus is on the physicality of what has been left after its expected usage has expired, what has been burnt out and neglected. He then draws upon these surfaces with a pen—recording the duration and gestures of the space he has inhabited, his visual memories about the current city and imaginations about a future city. The gaze he casts upon the city gains a form through diverse media. By collecting what has been cast out, the artist embraces what has fallen behind the rapid pace of city life; be that objects, sentiments, or individuals.

For Future’s Present Joonhong Min will create a new installation comprising films and a sculptural installation created from his drawings on found objects gathered in Hackney. This exhibition unfolds his impressions and inspirations of London while simultaneously visualising memories of the past and imaginations about a future city. From an urban perspective he is constructing a narrative around what has been left out in today’s urbanised society and what will be presented in this ‘unpredictable future to come’ under the name of efficiency and development.

Biography

Born in Seoul, South Korea in 1984, Joonhong Min currently lives and works in London. His two years in the US Military in 2010, and attending University College London in the UK in 2014 have sculpted his perspective toward contemporary society, of how it forms and breaks. The artist predominantly works in mixed media, including drawing, installation and video. 

Joonhong Min received an MFA from Slade School of Fine Art, University College London with a Distinction, and was the first recipient of the Leonora Carrington Scholarship (2014). He completed the London Summer Intensive Residency Program, Camden Art Centre, London (2017). Recent group and solo exhibitions include:The Flying Dutchman Play Space Gallery, London (2017); Royal Institute of the British Architects, London (2016); Royal Academy of Art Summer Exhibition (2016); Jerwood Drawing Prize Exhibition, London (2015) and The Consulate of South Korea, Project Space, Milan (2015).