Heaven BAEK: wolf and wolf

Heaven Baek has been exploring how an individual and a society interact with each other through their spatial relationship and its socio-political significance through her own unique visual language. Her new series of works in her solo exhibition Nangpae- wolf and wolf examines how human relationships are formed through video, photograph and installation.

 

'Nangpae' means 'Troubled' in Korean. The word itself comes from a pair of imaginary animals from an ancient Chinese legend. One of the wolves named 'Nang' only had front legs and the other called 'Pae' had only hind legs. They had polar opposite characters as much as their looks which made them co-dependent on each other making them a perfect whole. But whenever they were in discordance, the perfect harmony they forged would fall apart, therefore the use of the phrase 'Nagpae!'
Baek presents how 'Nang' and 'Pae' find their way for sustaining the prefect co-existence and find their compromising point in order to survive and furthermore, how they relate to the society. The work in the basement floor collapses on the first day of the exhibition which then later will be reconstructed by the audience. The work will come to its completion on the last day of the exhibition allowing the audience to become each other’s 'Nang' and 'Pae', as well as with the artist.

 

Heaven Baek earned her MFA from Glasgow School of Art in United Kingdom and holds a MFA in Media arts at RMIT University in Australia. She had her solo exhibition in Insa Art Space of the Arts Council Korea, Seoul in 2013. Her group exhibitions include Sound of community, Arko Museum, Seoul, 2015, Nobody’s Space), Amado Art, Seoul, 2016, Sound of Community, Arko Museum, Seoul, 2015, and Caesura, Reid Gallery, Glasgow, 2014.