UM Tai-Jung, World Worlds

UM Tai-Jung, a pioneering figure in Korea’s first generation of abstract sculpture, is holding a solo exhibition titled World Worlds at ARARIO GALLERY in Wonseo-dong, Seoul. Meeting the artist in the gallery, he remarked, “Placing a sculpture in a location is like establishing a world in that place. In the past, when a sotdae (a tall wooden pole with a carved bird on top) was erected at the entrance of a village, it became the village’s guardian spirit. The sotdae itself held a kind of magic. Likewise, when a sculpture stands, the magical force inherent in it transforms the existing space into a new one.” The exhibition title is borrowed from a phrase by the 20th-century German philosopher Martin Heidegger.