PALACE Projects
PALACE Projects
PALACE Projects
PALACE Projects
April/May 2023
23.04.23 - 21.05.23
Foto: Christian Ahlborn
Foto: Jana Buch
Foto: Jana Buch
Foto: Christian Ahlborn
Mustard-yellow and wine-red boxes pile up, harboring shiny gold cargo
inside, the precious commodity of divination. What is happiness? Is it
found enclosed in crispy pastries? Hope lies stored in the boxes, baked
into biscuits, waiting on printed slips of paper as a sweet promise.
Those who excitedly crackle the wrapping between their fingers, break
the cookie, can feel them on their tongues even before the message unfolds,
the sticky words of wisdom and prophecy that supposedly lead to
the truth. They are boxes with diamonds in their names, with the company name "Diamond" in capitals. Printed dragons guard the freshly baked goods and, together with a golden shell, convey a sense of value where there is none. Where the fortune cookies originally came from has not been
conclusively determined. However, they were probably invented by
Japanese immigrants in the early 20th century and established in California.
Contrary to popular belief, the sweet pastry was first exported to
China in the 1990s, where it was previously completely unknown, even
though Asians today regard the American export product as part
of their traditional culture.
In the windowed glass architecture of the Palace, however, the cookies
do not pile up as a mountain of golden treasures or lie cracked open at
the bottom, but are still packed in transport crates.The impression of
warehouses of large grocery stores is created, intensified by surveillance
mirrors, as if they were helping with the loading and unloading. Seen
from a distance, the work at Palace initially appears as a three-dimensional
image, the mirrors sweeping hidden truths to light, as in paintings
by the Old Masters. From any location, they turn the installation into an
all-viewing, almost cubist-looking work of art, which lies as if enclosed
in a showcase or seems detached when placed in public space.
"OPEN HERE" is written in capital letters on a pre-stamped flap. It is a
signpost for opening the packages, a gateway to the treasure hidden in
the dark.The architecture of the Palace is also open, allowing people
to look in around the clock and yet creating invisible barriers as glass
walls for the curious. At the same time, the boxes inside are visible and
yet closed.The metallic packaging of the fortune cookies is distantly
reminiscent of the texture of emergency blankets, which were already
used in an exhibition by artist Sangchul Lee in Seoul in 2017. Stacked as
cardboard boxes, the packages grow to the given limits as if in a green
house, suggesting AndyWarhol's Brillo boxes, which established a new
kind of realism, transferring everyday consumerism into art. Beyond
romanticized notions, fortune cookies are manufactured in large
quantities on a fully industrial scale, delivered in bulk to restaurants or
retailers, and buyers can choose from various sets of texts.The promise
of happiness becomes a standardized mass product, the epitome of
consumption, and the oracle becomes disenchanted.
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Sangchul Lee engages with a wide variety of exhibition sites as he feels
his way into them, observes their characteristics, and maps them with a
watchful eye. He sees structures, patterns, rhythms, sweeps them out of
unconscious perception, hides them from luminous darkness. His art
does not close itself off to the place, but embraces it, expands into it
from within and sensitively takes up architectural conditions. Modular
systems are emerging that are more adaptable to the site, adjusting to
their unique environment. Material and space are thus in a reciprocal relationship, gaining neutrality beyond art as a consumer object. Lee has already dealt with permeable boundaries before, when, on the occasion of his graduation in 2018 as a master student of Franka Hörnschemeyer, he placed construction fences as sculptures in the room or hung transparent fabric pyramidshaped from the ceiling in Düsseldorf's Offraum 8.
All this resembles a game with the curtain, when he makes fabrics visible through glass panels or, on the contrary, concealed underneath. His works are always characterized by a wink of the eye, as soon as a fire extinguisher becomes an art object by means of a mirror or massage balls are hidden
under protective plaster on the wall. Originally from South Korea himself, it was not the allusions to Asian culture that fascinated Lee about fortune cookies, but the box as a kind of "globe of absurdity". Symbols of longing, fantasy, and transcendence are distorted into mysteries on them, reduced to consumption, which indulges in an eternal cycle of desire that is hard to escape. Once caught in the clutches of the system, the ultimate goal is no longer happiness but the maintenance of status. "Diamant, Drache und Glück" conceives the exhibition space as an interface of cultural diversity and hierarchy, emphasizing its openness and also its limits.Who will succeed in breaking out of the glass prison? Who can stand up to dragons, capture diamonds and ultimately find happiness?
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Opening: 22.04.22 um 18 Uhr
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Artist: Sangchul Lee
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Text: Julia Stellmann
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Photos: Christian Ahlborn and Jana Buch
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