Title : My Romance
Date : 03. Aug. ~ 22. Aug., 2026
Opening : 07. Fri., Tue., 5 pm
Place : Artertain (Augustastrasse 31, 40477, Duesseldorf. Germany)
Curator : Heeseung Hwang (+82 (0)2-6160-8445)
Dusseldorf,
03. August, 2026
Romance with the Body
We can never truly escape our bodies. Precisely because of this, we
are constantly aware of them. They are both the closest part of ourselves
and, at times, the source of discomfort, desire, vulnerability, and
contradiction. My relationship with the body is shaped by this tension,
a continuous oscillation between affection and resistance, intimacy
and estrangement.
This body of work approaches that paradox through the idea of a romance
with the body. Like any complicated relationship, it is driven by attraction
while remaining haunted by distance. The body is no longer presented
as a complete or idealized form. Instead, it appears fragmented, separated,
and reduced to surfaces and cross-sections, inviting viewers to encounter
it not as a unified figure but as a collection of tactile memories and
sensations.
Constructed through 3D computer-generated imagery, these anatomical
fragments are transformed into familiar materials such as plastic, jelly,
metal, silicone, and woven textiles. Softness and rigidity, warmth and
artificiality, organic presence and industrial texture coexist within
the same image. As these materials replace flesh, the body begins to
resemble an object that invites touch rather than a living organism.
It becomes strangely familiar while remaining unmistakably alien.
Rather than questioning what the body is, I am interested in how we
perceive and desire it through its surface. The skin becomes a site
where memory, fantasy, and physical sensation converge, revealing the
complex emotional distance we maintain even from ourselves. In this
sense, the body is no longer simply biological; it becomes a psychological
and cultural landscape upon which our perceptions are projected.
Romance with the Body ultimately records an incomplete relationship
with the closest stranger we will ever know, our own body. It is an
exploration of intimacy that can never be fully possessed, and of desire
that continually shifts between attraction and detachment. Through these
unfamiliar yet seductive surfaces, the work invites viewers to reconsider
the fragile boundary between self and other, reality and simulation,
touch and imagination.
Text by Gustav Daishik Yim
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