SPACE January 2024 (No. 674)
Installation view of Useless to Useful ©Kim Jia
Fifteen teams of artists, who have been working on a variety of projects on the border between art and design, that have been brought together under the theme of stone. ‘Limbo of Image’, held at the N:NEWS Museum Euljiro from Nov. 24 to Dec. 3, 2023, presented about ten works that explored waste marble as a material for furniture and sculpture. The marble used by each artist was sponsored by Total Marble, a building materials company, and varies in size, colour, pattern, and condition. In the exhibition hall spanning the first and second floors, works of unknown origin were on display. Marble, which has long been used mainly on walls, for floors, and some furniture such as tables, due to its heavy and sturdy properties, has been reborn to be used in bench press, wheelchair, shelve, and transport boxes. The Extreme Efficiency, bench press made by combining iron and marble, creates the impression of an exquisitely crafted antique. The artist Yeon Jinyeong explores the essence of stone from fragments of unrefined discarded marble, replacing the act of collecting stones from a mine with the movement of lifting and lowering weights and questioning the meaning of production today. Niceworkshop’s Wheelchair, placed in the centre of the exhibition hall, was given mobility by attaching the wheels to marble, which is always fixed somewhere due to its heavy nature. It marks an attempt to break from stereotypes regarding the use of materials. Meanwhile, Useless to Useful, designed by Kim Hyunjong (principal, ATELIER KHJ), is a series in which waste marble, which had lost its original purpose, has acquired the function of skin by building a shelf structure with stainless steel and attaching marble. The various forms of works that originated in the exploration of materials gained added meaning by being placed in Euljiro known as the industrial zone.
