“Nothingness” as a metaphysical concept can also mean the state of silence devoid of distracting thoughts after completely emptying the mind. Everyone at one time wishes to settle down into a voluntary vacuum state. One greatly endeavors to grant oneself meaninglessness to disappear from the surrounding chaos and to deviate from outside pressure, whether as an escape or evasion. Life is like that. One tries to empty oneself and take a breather to empty greed and desires, but this may also be an immanent craving. We need the opportunity to absolutely distance ourselves from phenomenal experiences which we face in endless bondage. The title of the exhibition 0:00 metaphorically brings up the image of ‘vacuum time’ and the viewers of the three different frames are provided with the opportunity to exceed the metaphor and personally experience ‘vacuum time.’

When looking at JinHyung Lee’s painting, one faces an echo which resonates heavily with the deep concentration in contrast to the visually concise and lucid finish. The artist endlessly looks and immerses himself in a heap of unspecific visual images—images that do not correspond to anything in reality—which he has collected in order to deduct the image he wants. Lee reveals in the results that very tenacious process of capturing and refining the fleeting image. On the other side of the quiet and tidy sculptural language which is blended with figuration and abstraction, the artist has quietly buried the residues of his performance. A deep rest is conveyed as one looks deeper into his unique, tranquil frame.

A rough touch bordering between the grotesque and the soft crisscrosses all over the canvas which is over two meters long. Expressing wriggling movements and body languages through materiality awakens one’s organically entangled senses, and through this mechanism, a fantastical, rhythmical aura unfolds on the canvas. Inexorable brush marks, as if retracing the artist’s past act, flow freely relying only on sensory experiences. The materiality of wax and oil which can be found in artist Youngsoo Lee’s new work, through its accumulated density beyond measure, makes us closely and slowly submerge ourselves in it, eventually transforming our consciousness into a vacuum state.

Like a sun glow after rainfall, one layer of silver silk sweeps the surrounding as an aerial act. Before our eyes, it brightly rises like the touch of a bursting shutter and one looks at oneself drifting into a trance inside. Dispersion series by artist Oh Hee Won is a light drift that established itself as an abstraction. Various and repetitious drawings of transparent layers form space and the activity of floating matters on top of painting operates as a thin texture of volume. The artist pursues an intangible state of painting which exists lightly like fine particles and erases physical volume, like the transparent climatic state. In this process, transparency of silver powder combines with reflection of light to laminate and compose dreamlike scenes like a deep sleep, which cannot be substituted by language.

0 hour, 0 minutes is an absolute time. Because there is an actual embodiment, a vacuum time can exist. Inside that time, we can experience fabricated echo and vibration of dense concentration, intensive yet soft rolling rhythm, and ourselves drifting inside it. I hope that this exhibition will be a time for you to erase your qualifications as an entity within the already open field and to discover your temporarily absent self.


-Minji Choi, Director of Prompt Project