JOEY RAMONE

There is something slightly strange about trying to make an exhibition stand still.

Yesum Yoon’s works seem to have other plans. They lean, gather, stretch, wobble, wait. Some appear ready to move in their own direction, while others seem to have stopped only temporarily—as if they might suddenly continue when nobody is looking. Together, they form a landscape of different scales, speeds and temperaments, where the visitor is not outside looking in, but becomes part of the landscape.

The rhythm of the exhibition emerged gradually, through conversations, experiments, suggestions, changes of mind and a fair amount of wandering. We have worked together before, and by now our way of working has become a little like dancing together—or playing jazz. One moves, the other responds. Sometimes we follow the same rhythm, sometimes we deliberately lose it. A suggestion becomes a detour, a detour becomes a work, and occasionally something arrives that neither of us quite expected.

We went through quite a few possible titles along the way. Weather. Climate. Rehearsal. Jazz. Things that seemed to explain what was happening a little too well.

(Mallarmé would probably tell us that naming something too quickly takes away some of the pleasure of discovering it.)

(Eco might have reminded us to leave the work open.)

So we did.

The works carry weight—materially, bodily, perhaps even emotionally—but they don't seem particularly interested in behaving heavily. They have their own rhythms, moving through the space like people in a city: running, walking, biking, waiting, stopping, suddenly changing direction. A pause is not necessarily stillness. A small movement can carry quite a lot.

If everything had happened slowly, or everything quickly, we probably would not have arrived here in quite the same way. Things were moving all along, through their own small streams and currents, sometimes separately, sometimes crossing, eventually meeting somewhere.

Perhaps that is what this landscape is: not a place where everything has settled, but a place where things meet while still in motion.

So we thought we would let the exhibition unfold.

Dancing rather than walking towards something.
Singing rather than explaining.
Wandering.
Laughing.
And crying, if needed.

Slow Slow quick quick Slow.

Take your time. Or don't.