Installation view of 《Existed, Exist, Will Exist》 © Space BA

At Space BA on the second floor of Sewoon Makers Cube in Sewoon Sangga, Shin Kiwoun and the Korea- and UK-based project group 10AAA presented 《Existed. Exists. Will Exist.》 as part of the exhibition series ‘Sewoon, Artist’s Laboratory Part 6’ through August 22.

The exhibition space was composed of painterly blueprints—pen drawings on canvas based on the schematics and technical diagrams of objects that had long informed Shin’s practice, which previously centered on video works and various technological media.

Through drawings of manuals for machines that once existed or could have existed, animation blueprints for Astro Boy, and diagrams of vacuum tube lamps, the exhibition questions the temporality of “the existence of objects” and the “possibility of the truth of existence.”

Shin Kiwoun selected images and objects that he had long considered within his practice in terms of their “reality,” their “potential for reality,” and their possible future existence. Unlike his earlier works, which primarily focused on video, his recent practice has expanded toward physical objects, including works in which 3D-printed forms are coated with powder made from ground books.

In this exhibition, he presents blueprints of objects that appear as though they may once have existed, or are wished to exist, as well as electrical circuit diagrams of objects that once actually existed and were used. These are rendered on canvas through blue-toned surfaces resembling blueprint paper and drawn over with white pen.

Objects such as the Macintosh MC275 amplifier, the Horten Ho 229 aircraft, and Astro Boy had existed in the artist’s childhood memory as imagined entities remembered as impossibly fascinating despite never truly existing. In this exhibition, Shin experiments with translating obsolete and forgotten objects—those no longer used or stripped of their functional value—into two-dimensional works in the form of blueprint drawings.

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