As the saying goes, the only certainty in life is uncertainty.
It’s a concept that’s long fascinated Kelvin Kyung Kun Park. At his recently unveiled solo exhibition, Double Mirror, on display now as part of the Shanghai Glass Museum’s “Annealing” project, the Korean artist presents brand-new works that examine the theme of uncertainty in the context of identity, perception, and transformation.
For those familiar with Park’s past work, it might seem strange to see an artist best known for his directorial work at the Shanghai Museum of Glass, but this is precisely the point of “Annealing”: by inviting artists from different backgrounds, Lise Li, the project’s art director, hopes to push both the medium of glass and the artists’ creativity to their limits. She believes that this friction yields the best types of art, and Park’s stunning contributions this year validate this philosophy.
The first work in the show is a video art installation that plays to Park’s strengths as a director. Lacking dialogue, the film shows a pair of identical twins wandering through a labyrinth of mirrors. As they make their way through, they find themselves captivated by their own reflections, but the intensity with which they’re studying themselves in the mirror is unsettling—it’s almost as if they don’t recognize the person standing before them.
By making it unclear on whether the camera is trained on the characters themselves or their reflections, Park conveys the characters’ own sense of uncertainty. The ultra-wide aspect ratio, used purposefully to limit the audience’s field of view, heightens this feeling to anxiety-inducing levels. The discomfort that courses through the film’s 12-minute runtime poses a simple question, “How can we be sure that the person we see in the mirror is our true self?”
展览中的第一件作品是朴庆根作为导演身份擅长的部分：视频装置。全片没有对话，讲述了一对孪生双胞胎徘徊在镜子迷宫之间。当从数面镜子间穿过时，她们会被镜中反射的自己迷住，但整个过程令两位双胞胎都很不安，看上去她们好像并不认识镜中的自己。
其实，就连摄像镜头也没办法确定拍摄到的是否是真实的人物还是镜像，朴庆根通过这部作品传达出了视频中人物自身的不确定感。超宽的影像，将观众的视野限定在视频中，让人们的焦虑感上升。整个影片共 12 分钟，其带来的不安氛围仿佛向我们提出了一个简单的问题，“我们怎么知道镜中自己就是我们本人？”
In the second part of Park’s exhibition, he gives physicality to the notion of uncertainty through a series of glass-and-steel sculptures that represent the inconstancy of human nature. On each work, triangular panes of glass affixed to a steel column and powered by servomotors that change their position over time. As they rotate and flip into different configurations, they reflect new geometric patterns of light across the ceiling and walls. The sculptures’ subtle changes and their effect on the surrounding room speak to a number of ideas: though we may not notice it, we’re always changing as individuals, and these changes directly influence the world around us—or at least our perception of it.
Through this multimedia exhibition, Park aims to alleviate our collective fear of change and uncertainty: once we recognize and accept that change is inevitable, we can stop worrying about things out of our control and fully appreciate the present.
个展的第二部分，朴庆根将不确定性赋予在了一系列玻璃和钢铁制成的雕塑上，用来展示人性的无常。每支作品都由数个三角形玻璃框构成，它们围绕在钢柱上，并由发电机供电，不停地翻转着。当变换出不同的外形时，它们在天花板和墙壁上也会反射出不同的几何光图。雕塑的细微变化与它们在房间内部的反射，仿佛告诉了我们一些道理：尽管我们可能没有注意到，但我们作为个体总是在变化，这些变化会直接影响我们周围的世界，或者至少我们对它的感知。
在这次多媒体展览中，朴庆根希望缓解我们对不确定和改变的集体恐惧。当我们意识到改变是不可避免的，我们就会选择去接受它。我们要做的，就是停止对不可抗力因素的焦虑，坦然并真挚地活在当下。
Aside from Kelvin Kyung Kun Park, Chinese artist Sun Xun is also holding a separate solo exhibition, Frontier Part II, as part of this year’s “Annealing” project. Both are now on display at the Shanghai Glass Museum of Art until March 29th, 2020. Tickets are available online at Maoyan and Damai.
Exhibitions:
Double Mirror & Frontier Part II
Exhibition Dates:
November 5th, 2019 ~ March 29th, 2020
Hours:
Tuesday ~ Friday, 1 pm ~ 5 pm
Weekend & Holidays, 11 am ~ 5 pm
Address:
Shanghai Museum of Glass Park
685 Changjiang West Road
Baoshan District, Shanghai
China
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Website: kelvinkyungkunpark.com
Instagram: @kelvinkyungkunpark
Contributor: David Yen
Chinese Translation: Pete Zhang
Images Courtesy of the Shanghai Museum of Glass
