Upon entering Helen J Gallery, the electric sounds produced by the neon lights of Ahn Hyong Nam’s dynamic sculptures pour into visitors’ ears and plunges them into the artist’s reimagined matrix. As the show’s title implies, “Automatic Nature,” Ahn’s work investigates the function of industry amidst nature. Earthly materials intertwine with metal and colorful neon forms as an homage to our mechanized world. Free-standing or on a wall, these works are a vortex of shapes, textures and colors. Pervading and protruding from every angle, viewers find themselves exerting the same degree of kinetic energy as the art itself.

At the front of the gallery is the piece Flower Bouquet (2022), a nebulous sculpture crafted from corrugated aluminium with orange, yellow, and magenta splashes. Visitors maneuver around beams of curved neon and steel rods. The work’s presentation is in constant flux. With each step, the viewer sees something different: figures twist, and new spots of color appear.

 

Here, motion is the seed for which Ahn’s approach blossoms. Viewers are gifted the freedom to engage with the sculpture at their discretion. Residing in the cavities of this sculpture are curiosities about our everchanging relationship with technology. How else can such phenomena be connected to any critiques of the democracy we claim to live in?

There is a spirituality at play in Ahn’s sculptures. Take Jacob’s Ladder #7 (2022), a vertical, asymmetrical arrangement of stainless-steel rods ascending from a geode. Transfixed rocks at each level speak to the immediacy of nature within an automized universe. At the same time, we are presented with a title that has biblical ideation. As our eyes follow the sculpture from the bottom to top, we climb an internal ladder defined by our own growth and knowledge.

Ahn Hyong Nam: Automatic Nature
Helen J Gallery
June 4, 2022 to July 16, 2022
https://helenjgallery.com/