AHN Chang Hong: Paradise

About the exhibition

The first thing you meet is Blindness – War (2026), a cast-iron head about three meters tall. Arario Gallery says it marks AHN Chang Hong's first use of cast iron as a sculptural medium. Yonhap reports that it weighs 1.1 tons and has a shell lodged diagonally in the face. The gallery counts 39 works, which Yonhap breaks down as 38 paintings and one sculpture. The gallery's installation views place it on floors 1, 3 and 4.

The gallery highlights a new series of paintings that incorporate daguerreotype photographs, an early photographic process. Jaekyung Ilbo reports a series of photographs of taxidermied animals, abandoned in storage when a natural history museum closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, with tears and yellow butterflies painted on top. Yonhap describes works titled 얼굴 ("face") as paintings of a cement relief made by digging a face shape into the ground.

The gallery says the title Paradise is ironic, pointing to violence and absurdity hidden under the order of mainstream society.

About the artist

AHN Chang Hong (b. 1953) works in painting and sculpture. Arario Gallery says the work draws attention to people forgotten by society or forced into silence, and cites the artist's view that an artist's mission is to serve as a "social catalyst" by making uncomfortable truths visible. Busan Ilbo reports that the artist moved from Busan to Yangpyeong in 1989. The same paper reports a first solo show at a US museum, noon-mool, at the American University Museum in Washington, D.C., through December 6.

Sources: Arario Gallery: Paradise