Is this the scent of soap, or the scent of a beautiful classic? As soon as one steps into the exhibition hall, one is approached by a pleasant aroma. Shin Meekyoung, a visual artist, holds her solo exhibition – Time/ Material: Performing Museology – to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Coreana Museum of Art. Through this exhibition, Shin attempts to reinterpret the materiality of cultural heritage or human traces in history. The exhibition takes place in space*c, a unique place cohabitated by the Coreana Museum of Art and the Cosmetics Museum. To appreciate the artworks, viewers must go up and down the floors, moving between the two museums. The artist gives meaning to the distinct spaces by breaking down the dichotomy between both modern and antique art, as well as oriental and western art.

As an active sculptor in the contemporary art world, Shin is famous for her ongoing “Translation” project where she explores the mutational processes undergone by familiar cultural entities that have experienced a change in location. From classical statues of the West to ceramics of the East, Shin reinterprets them by using soap. Since 1996, she has shown various artwork such as the Petrified Time Series, Ghost Series, Romantic Sculpture Series and more. Recently, in addition to soap, Shin has been showing attempts to use new materials such as ceramic, bronze, and resin. With some of her productions surviving for two decades, viewers can capture the condensed time through her artwork.

The Scent Makes it Special

In an interview with the Coreana Museum of Art, Shin tells her story of how she started using soap as a main material. Back when she went to study in London in 1995, Shin began to question where the true value of artifacts in museums comes from. Shin thought that the process in which soap loses its original function and acquires authority as a work of art is like the process in which an object loses its function and becomes a relic in a museum. The artist presents this idea through the Toilet Project and the Weathering Project. Although she came across soap by chance, it has “become an irreplaceable material” for her.

The first artwork one will encounter is The Large Painting Series, which is also the artist’s latest work in 2023. The brightly colored flat sculpture against the dark background and the scent will fascinate viewers from the beginning. Though it was created by melting over 100 kilograms (kg) of soap, adding color and scent, and pouring it into a mold to harden it, it may look like a general oil painting abstract if not closely observed. That is, viewers indirectly experiencing the work as a two-dimensional image cannot accept its physical properties. “I find irony in that my work may not appear to be distinctive from other twodimensional paintings if they are experienced in mediated form instead of direct contact,” says Shin, “This is a matter of personal interest for me,” The importance of distinguishing between vicariously experiencing her art and appreciating it in-person is why she added more fragrance to the works.

The artwork can be seen as an expansion of her Painting Series located on the 2nd basement floor. Shin has collected antique picture frames since 2014, restored them, and filled the place where the painting used to be with soap to create the series. Along with the Painting Series, the 2nd basement floor consists of works from various periods of time, including the collections of the Coreana Museum of Art, her early sculptures from the Translation Project, and her latest work, the Romantic Sculpture Series. 

Time is Engrained in Soap

Viewers are likely to find the Toilet Project one of the most interesting parts of the exhibition, as they can take part in creating artwork. The artist has been working on this project since 2004, and viewers may find them in this exhibition as well, in the bathrooms of the 1st basement and the 6th floor. By washing their hands with soap sculptures, viewers get to directly touch the sculptures with their wet hands, molding the pieces little by little. By doing such, the temporality in the pieces that have melted and disappeared through the hands of many people is highlighted. The soap sculptures will be collected in several months to be displayed in the exhibition halls.

According to the interview, this project aims to visually reproduce the process of objects becoming relics in a museum, with their time and functionality suspended. The Weathering Project hs the same intentions, but instead of letting the hands engage, the rain and wind deform the objects. In addition, the reason Shin chose works that are emblematic of Western sculptures on the 1st basement floor was to create a clear contrast between these malformed objects. The results of these projects can be seen on the fifth and sixth floors of the exhibition hall. Contrary to how the soap changed so easily in the bathrooms, exhibited soap sculptures are in a suspended state, as if they retained the temporality of different dimensions. Shin uses resin and bronze to recast the traces of time in soap, inviting the viewers to look back on the traces of time.

Though it may be a trivial product, soap truly brings great excitement to the art world through Shin’s works. As seen in both projects, when objects that originally had a use began to be displayed in museums, they lost their original meanings and gained new meanings from the viewer. From this point, viewers will be able to interpret the museum as a place that connects the past, present, and future, as well as a place to trace time back.

Exhibition Information

Title: Time/Material: Performing Museology

Date: March 2 to June 10, 2023

Venue: Coreana Museum of Art, Coreana Cosmetics Museum

Admission: General 6,000 KRW / Students 5,000 KRW