Title : The Air We Share
Date : 03. May. ~ 13. Jun., 2026
Place : Artertain (Augustastrasse 31, 40477, Duesseldorf. Germany)
Curator : Heeseung Hwang (+82 (0)2-6160-8445)

Dusseldorf, 03. May, 2026

The Air We Share

There is always air in the streets. Yet we rarely notice it. Air is invisible and has no fixed form, passing freely through and between all spaces. Precisely for this reason, however, air becomes one of the most fundamental conditions of connection. We breathe through air; sound travels through its vibrations; and a balloon acquires volume and presence only when filled with it. Air, then, is not simply a natural element, but an immaterial field of relations connecting one existence to another.

Within this context, Jibin Im’s Bear Balloon is far more than a sculptural object based on a familiar character. It is a presence that comes into being only by holding air within itself, while simultaneously functioning as a symbolic device that reflects the structures of desire and emotion in contemporary society. For many years, Im has worked with the familiar form of BE@RBRICK as an appropriated object from popular culture. Observing how the same toy-like form enters an entirely different system of value when it encounters the languages of branding and capital, he has discovered within it the structures of desire and the unstable identities that characterize contemporary capitalist society.

The artist’s choice of the balloon as a material and sculptural form is particularly significant. Unlike solid sculpture, a balloon can easily sway, fold, inflate, and contract. It responds sensitively to its surroundings, and the moment the air escapes, it returns to a powerless, flattened surface. Perhaps this condition resembles our own existence in contemporary society: constantly responding to external circumstances and expanding under their influence, while remaining vulnerable enough to be unsettled by even the smallest rupture.

Im has placed these Bear Balloons not only inside museums and galleries, but also on streets, in public spaces, in natural environments, and in unexpected locations. Giant bear-shaped balloons appear squeezed between aging buildings, stand confidently in the middle of public squares, or change their forms according to the wind and weather. These appearances are not merely sculptural interventions. Rather, they operate as sensory events that invite us to reconsider the relationships between the city, its environment, and the people who inhabit it.

His practice is particularly significant in that it does not remain confined to the white cube. Instead, it continuously moves through streets and urban environments in what the artist calls Delivery Art. His work does not remain static. Its sculptural language is completed through movement, installation, and its encounters?sometimes collisions?with the city itself. In this sense, the work also raises a question about how art might exist not as something fixed within a particular institution, but as something that actively enters the flow of everyday life. Since 2011, Im has continued these projects in cities around the world, demonstrating how art can become not the possession of a particular place, but a sensory experience open to anyone.

The exhibition The Air We Share extends this long-running project into the urban context of Dusseldorf. Within a cityscape where industry and art, historical urban structures and contemporary culture coexist, the Bear Balloon takes its place like another breath of the city. Here, “the air we share” does not simply refer to a physical space. It suggests the emotions and desires that circulate through the city, the memories and relationships that inhabit it, and the invisible currents of sensation that pass between people. Im’s Bear Balloon exists like a moving breath that gives visual form to these unseen flows.

Despite its monumental scale, his work is never intimidating. Instead, it approaches the viewer through the familiar form of a character that almost anyone may feel they have encountered somewhere before. Yet within this familiarity, we suddenly encounter something strange. Why is this enormous balloon standing in the street? Why do we smile when we see it, while at the same time experiencing an emotion that is difficult to explain? And why does it seem to wander through the city almost like a living being?

Ultimately, Jibin Im’s Bear Balloon is more than a sculptural object. It is an event that appears momentarily within the city and then disappears, an incomplete and fragile existence whose form is sustained temporarily by air. Perhaps it is also another kind of self-portrait, reflecting the anxieties and desires of contemporary life. At the same time, it breaks down the boundary between art and everyday experience, transforming familiar spaces into places that can be perceived anew.

The air that began in the streets now moves into another space in Dusseldorf. At that moment, the exhibition space is no longer simply a place in which works of art are viewed. It becomes another layer of air, where different sensations and perspectives, relationships and memories intersect.

In the end, we all live by breathing the same air.
And Jibin Im’s Bear Balloon creates moments in which we are invited to think once again about the invisible connections that bind us together.

Text by Gustav Daishik Yim