The Hole-In-Chest Nation 10th Gwangju Biennale Installation


Mr. Chai Eui Jin and 1,000 Canes
1986~2014
1370 unfinished canes installation, dimensions variable.
Installation view (2014) at 10th Gwangju Biennale.
Courtesy the artist. Created for the 10th Gwangju Biennale Burning down the house.
Photograph: Jang Sung-ha

1,000 Canes (2014) is a group of unfinished canes made by artist Eui Jin Chai, who miraculously survived a massacre that took place on December 24, 1949, when he was left for dead under the corpses of his older brother and younger cousin. After the incident, he devoted his entire life to bringing the truth of the massacres to light. For the past three decades, he has been making sculpture in response to ‘a bitter struggle against a life tainted with sorrow, anger, solitude, and curse’, using the branches and roots of trees that he has collected. For the biennale, Minouk Lim presents part of Chai’s works and her Wearable Sculptures, a series of objects that take as their inspiration Chai’s unfinished tree branches. Lim has used this range of wearable objects in the series of performances Portable Keeper (2009–ongoing). Recalling human organs, the sculptures function as ironic intermediary objects that point to the unsayable. Haptic and movable, they encourage interaction between the artist’s work and the viewer.

The Hole-in-chest Nation
2014

wood, metal, artificial hair, accordion
Photo by Sungha Jang

Mr. Chai Eui Jin Auto portait  

The Hole-in-chest Nation Inmin 2014

The Hole-in-chest Nation Inmin 2014