The body is both familiar and strange. For many people, it merely refers to a physical body. Though it is the only physical proof of one’s existence, throughout history it has either been forgotten in the relationship between the mind and body, or it has consciously suppressed its own potential. In the shadows of reason, it has been re-understood as a physical concept that is compared to a mentality under strong self-restriction.

The body, however, is a substance in and of itself. It is an independent object that cannot ever be controlled by any defined notion or awareness. It produces meaning when it has contact with the world and contributes to the transfer beyond that meaning in relation-focused form. While preparing for Typojanchi 2017, I tried to discover the true meaning and aesthetics of the body from the particularities between one body and another body in a frame that is not of a linear notion, and which is not divided into past-present-future within the space of an arbitrary boundary.

There were no assumptions such as The exhibition will be like this or that. I believed that true creativity could not be exhibited with predictable or prescribed notions or planning. I intended many things to be credited to curators and artists. I supposed that the role of the director would be just like that of a football head coach or an orchestra conductor, and that the truly meaningful result of the exhibition would be an unpredictable chemical reaction between an artist’s motion and that of the audience. Even if it were fleeting, I hoped it would be reproduced as a number of different interpretations and responses. This is how Typojanchi 2017 was born, and it has since become a space and time of exchanges where we untie the symbolism of the body and letters, and complete them in diversely but loosely connected forms.

Excerpt: 《Mohm, Right Here: Preface to Typojanchi 2017 》
Ahn Byunghak, Art Director