Quoting Diana Ross’ iconic hit It‘s my house Sangun Ho’s solo exhibition at soft power looked into the details that make up the surfaces of our everyday life. The romantic encounter of two pigeons on a sidewalk, an abandoned pillow comfortably resting on a window sill, a little dog peeking over the edge of the breakfast table, a bottle hiding out under the fridge – Sangun Ho captures lived and living moments that we all encounter every day. The artist collects and accumulates these fragments in a snapshot-like manner – halting their fleeting presence by giving each of them the focused attention needed to create his detailed hand drawings.
As a body of work, the vast amount of these daily drawings seems to represent "the real world", yet creating a world entirely of their own. Often captured in transit, on his way to the studio, coming home, leaving, Sangun Ho’s motives hint at the beauty inherent in the oddest of situations, which he continues to observe where others might neglect them. There is no hierarchy in place between real encounters, scenarios unfolding on an imagined level, or fragments of a daydream retold by someone else. They are equally "zoomed in from the visually noisy world and murmur their own unclear but convincing stories." What might seem like a random occurrence to you, holds a potential for "the most substantial amusement" to Sangun Ho. Now, we have lived with the shared experience of being confined to our homes, to our daily routes to work and back, to routines that might not reach beyond going to the supermarket every once in a while. Our focus for those random occurrences might have been sharpened, or we might have lost it altogether, as they all blend into each other with every passing day. Sangun Ho invites us to zoom into the precise randomness that every such moment may hold; he invites us into his world, at times quite literally into his house.
As part of the exhibition at soft power the artist opened his Hosangun Reproduction Office. Presented for the first time in Germany, in this ongoing project Sangun Ho invites audiences to share such snapshot-moments, recollections of last night’s dream, or even a personal secret. The artist then makes a postcard-sized drawing, which he finally sends to the respective “author” to conclude the production of the work. Throughout the duration of the exhibition, the Hosangun Reproduction Office was open daily to welcome visitors and to give their stray stories a home.
On the occasion of the exhibition, Sangun Ho produced the edition Love of Pigeons, 2022 (420 x 297 mm, fine art print on mediaJET Litho Archiv mat, 30 + 3 AP) im Auftrag von soft power in collaboration with Contemporary Artist Things.