↳ Exhibitions

Yohan Hàn at Parliament

June 5, 2022

Artist: Yohan Hàn

Exhibition title: Momsalpuli

Venue: Parliament, Paris, France

Date: May 21 – July 2, 2022

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Parliament, Paris

Parliament Gallery is pleased to present Momsalpuli, Yohan Hàn’s first solo exhibition in France from May 21 to July 2, 2022.

Bamboo – Branch – Crumpled Grass – Bamboo – Horned Statue – Sound Cloud – Stone Statue – Epitaph – Crumpled Grass – Bamboo – Spinning Hand – Blue Rooftops – Horned Statue – Censer – Bamboo – Blurred Vision – Bamboo – Branch – Tombstone – Bamboo – Horned Statue – Silent Cloud – Horned Statue – Stone Pagoda – Horned Statue – Branch – Crumpled Grass – Bamboo – Censer – Horned Statue – Stone Pagoda – Bamboo – Blurred Vision

Transcribed from Korean to French, these words refer to all the elements filmed by the artist using a head-mounted camera during a choreography performed near the grave of a family member in the outskirts of Seoul. They appear one after another on a blue screen in the gallery in a fast-paced rhythm echoing that of a drum.

The title of the exhibition “MOMSALPULI” is a compound word of “Body” and “Salpuli” meaning “washing away evil spirits” and defining the culminating point of Korean shamanic rituals. Over time, Salpuli has evolved into a dance that no longer exercises any religious function, gradually being adapted to the performing arts. Tuned to Shinawi music, which is largely improvised and composed by percussion and wind instruments, the dancers’ movements occur in a trance-like state.

Hàn Yohan transforms the exhibition space into an environment where the materiality of the body is absent in order to make way to the traces of its passage. How can we approach performances and the place our bodies hold in an experience of reality which has been galvanised by communication networks? What becomes of our senses, and in particular of our touch, in an era of distancing experienced in an increasingly digitalised way?

Here only the traces remain. First those of the movements made by the artist on a painting on the ground, then those of the visitors invited by the device to inscribe their steps on this colourful composition.

The disappearance of the body is treated differently in The dialogues (2022). The video transcribes exchanges of messages on the “Kakaotalk open chat” application which took place during a performance at MMCA Seoul and in which the artist sent instructions to the dancers using the chat as the only means of communication. The public, the artist and his team came together in this particular dimension where the information and comments generated became the real issue.

The resurgence of the body, however, is addressed by Hàn in the design of his Graft series, which takes the form of traditional Korean drums. Assembled from animal skins sewn together and covered with thick layers of paint, their materiality evokes that of a hybrid type of body envelope. These objects, intended to produce vibrations with the tapping of musicians’ hands, incite us to draw a parallel with how our fingers now perform on our touch screens and keyboards. These pieces question the sensory experience which is lived in a reality that links the carnal to the digital.

The threads and staples that bind the different skins together are here the union of the bodies, in a similar instance to the connection of the dancers taking place on the instant messaging application.

Yohan Hàn (1983, Trappes-en-Yvelines, France) lives and works in Seoul, Korea. His recent exhibitions include: The Principle of Resonance, Art space Boan, Seoul, Korea (2021), Young Korean Artists, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Gwacheon, Korea (2021), Triple Ring, Seoul Culture Station 284, Seoul, Korea (2021), Somatic Drumming, Cheogju Art Studio, Cheongju, Korea (2020), Inside Resonance, Gallery Chosun, Seoul, Korea (2019).