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The folding up of UNFOLD: The Art of Clothing 

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UNFOLD from January 30 to April 1, 2023 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Noa Nelson

Clothing has played an important role throughout history. Think of the Black Panther movement easily identified by their leather jackets and berets. Maybe you remember seeing AOC’s “Tax the Rich” dress at the Met Gala in 2021. Or perhaps hats and shirts endorsing specific political parties or leaders. 

Fashion can traditionally be used by people to fit in with a group, while usually also defining hierarchy and social structures. In the Stamp Gallery’s current exhibit, UNFOLD, clothing is also used to express individual beliefs. 

The clothes that we wear have deep underlying meanings beyond what is visible in plain sight. Our clothes speak louder than words. Clothing can be a reflection of social changes in our society. The work in UNFOLD brings overlapping perspectives about the ways in which our clothes display or voice a message. Clothing is not only about fashion or what is aesthetically pleasing. The art on view encourages visitors to ask themselves what the clothing they wear means to them. How does something seemingly meaningless carry lots of weight?

Elliot Doughtie, Sock Pile 3 (Laundry Day Dubuffet series), 2022.

Elliot Doughtie’s sock sculptures from the Laundry Day Dubuffet series play into the idea of using clothing as a means to fit in with the larger group. The plaster casts of red-stripe athletic socks are strong, muscular, and solid. They are repeated, grouped together, and intertwined with one another. With their repetition and stiffness, they speak about group identity regarding gender performance masculinity. Generally worn by men, these vintage-inspired socks give off an inherent masculine energy. They jog our memory of sweaty gym days in middle school. The Sock Pile sculptures and Doughtie’s drawing of socks titled  Group Activity feature an overwhelming number of socks. They show the socks enveloping each other, making it hard to pick them apart from one another. It is difficult to distinguish where one sock ends and begins. The socks in the middle are barely visible to the eye. This draws into the idea of group identity and performance. There is strength in numbers but no individuality or space for people to pave their own path within a group. 

Alongside Group Activity is another drawing by Doughtie of one singular sock entitled Solo. This lonesome sock reminds the viewer that there is an advantage in being in a group. Socks are meant to be in a pair and when we lose that one sock while doing laundry our once powerful pair of socks now becomes useless. Doughtie speaks about the power and danger of group identity, but also the importance of being a part of something larger and the ineffectiveness of complete solitude and lonesome behavior.

HH Hiaasen, Ventilated Workwear: GRIDsuit, 2016.

On the other hand, HH Hiaasen’s Ventilated Workwear seems to be representing the beliefs that we hold as individuals. The coveralls are from Hiaasen’s line of “anti-uniforms.” Simply by reading the name we can already get a sense of the message that Hiaasen wants us to walk away with. Uniforms link us to a group identity. Uniforms can give us a sense of belonging but also ask us to conform to the desires and needs of the group at large. Uniforms have the power of making us one of the many. The “ventilated” protective wear that Hiaasen has created directly fights the idea of a uniform. Their pieces force us to question the forms of clothing that we put on our bodies to guard ourselves. They do this by using conventional articles of protective wear such as coveralls, goggles, gloves, and masks with holes cut out in them. The holes in the coveralls work to expose ourselves and make us stand out as individuals. These forms of protection symbolize the ways in which we mistakenly believe that we are protecting ourselves, but also how we test the limits to form our own identities. 

So the next time you put on any article of clothing, ask yourself what is it about this shirt that I identify with or how do these pants represent my beliefs? How can I use a piece of clothing as an instrument for change? Allow your entire outfit to speak words for itself and to speak words for you.

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A Reflection to Remember: Teach Me How to Love This World

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Teach Me How to Love This World from October 19 to December 10, 2022 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Ellen Zhang

Bold red streaks, ominous ringing, whirrings of rotating projector shutters… each piece in Teach Me How to Love This World plays an integral part in illustrating a past, present, and future world grappling with violence and peace. What I like about Kei Ito’s work is that it’s direct and straightforward without undermining its complexities. As a viewer, I am amazed by how he has balanced artistic choices, abstract themes (like the meaning of peace), and the factuality of the impacts of nuclear war. Together, these three elements create the necessary experience of being caught off guard that precedes a stage of reflection. 

Stepping foot into this exhibition for the very first time, the piece that caught my attention was Teach Me How to Love This World: Sacrifice. The immediate appearance of a blood-red peace sign dripping down the canvas is jarring, intimidating, and contradicting. The perception of tranquility, from the peace symbol, is intruded by the blood-red color, enhancing Ito’s message that peace doesn’t come without fatal sacrifice. Ito reflects the destructive nature of war weapons through artistic choices that don’t sugarcoat and, instead, speak volumes on how nuclear war is a source of fear and intimidation. For those that are conflict-avoidant like me, an initial glimpse is enough to instill a sense of trepidation and uneasiness. 

Kei Ito, Teach Me How to Love This World: Sacrifice, 2022. Unprimed canvas, spray paint, print on aluminum dibond, 36x48x3 in.

The question of “whose peace, whose sacrifice” splattered across the top and bottom of the canvas adds to the power of the piece. It’s a transparent move that introduces perplexing questions between humanity and war, unlike the sanitized version we often get from the mainstream media. By proposing the question of “whose peace, whose sacrifice,” Ito also eases the viewer into a stage of reflection: Who are the victims of nuclear war? Who benefits from it? Is there even a clear distinction between the two or are we all unknowing victims of nuclear war? While I haven’t found the answers to these questions, I appreciate how Ito’s work is centralized in questions rather than statements. Nothing is definitive and, perhaps, this is on purpose. Ito breaks the stigma of reflecting on war by encouraging us, the viewers, to weigh on an integral theme of conflict: someone’s peace is brought through someone else’s suffering. During Ito’s artist talk, he even encouraged his audience to consider everyday life through the lens of sacrifice, war, and peace. For example, he mentioned how fast fashion is one of many suppressed examples of those benefiting from another’s exploitation. 

Situated in the center of the canvas is an inverted photograph of a goat receiving a blood transfusion by three masked doctors. Here, Ito adds additional layers of identity, fact, and questioning. The presence of a goat pays homage to the significance of animals ingrained in Japanese culture. At the same time, the photograph is rooted in factual evidence that depicts the devastating effects of atomic bomb testing. The original photograph was taken by George Skadding in 1947 and captures the moment when a goat, exposed to radiation from an A-bomb test on Bikini Atoll Island, receives a blood transfusion as it lies strapped to a surgical table at the Bethesda Naval Medical Research Institute, MD. Reflecting on the photo with its historical backdrop in mind subjects the viewer to numerous questions: Why did Ito choose a historical moment that took place in Maryland? Why is the photograph placed where it is? Why is it inverted? With no answers in plain sight, we are encouraged to ponder the artistic choices Ito has made. To me, Teach Me How to Love This World: Sacrifice is a piece that embodies reflection. And quite literally, the contents on the canvas are mirrored, portraying the interdependent relationship between those who enjoy peace and those who sacrifice. At the same time, the viewers can reflect on how power and politics determine who is impacted by war. The photograph alone is a testament to how some, if not all, can have their peace stripped from them at any given moment and with no say at all. 

Despite the way Ito explores the dichotomy between peace and war, his exhibition is certainly not despairing in nature. By balancing the factual and the abstract, he breaks the silence on taboo subjects and builds fruitful conversations, open to anyone regardless of their background, belief systems, and ideas. Ito brings a sense of vulnerability into the gallery, graciously inviting us to explore, and prompting reflections to remember. 

Teach Me How to Love This World: Kei Ito will be on view in The Stamp Gallery at the University of Maryland, College Park from October 19 through December 10, 2022. For more information on Kei Ito and his work, visit http://www.kei-ito.com/.

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Teach Me How to Love Myself

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Teach Me How to Love This World from October 19  to December 10, 2022  at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Isabella Chilcoat

My typical approach to articulating each exhibition by the Stamp Gallery over the past year and a half has involved a level of formal artistic analysis and critique. However Teach Me How to Love This World: Kei Ito plucked a chord in my being that I feel calls for a more intimate reading. Ito’s current solo exhibition manifests not only a physical presence, but also a profound psychological phenomenon of deep empathy and contemplation. His works plunge my own mind into an abyss of chilling curiosity – they cast a red-hued light of extrospection on my own inner tribulations. Themes of generational trauma, visible and invisible wounds, violence, destruction, rebirth, and peace radiate from the six works on view, and each piece contains a piercing capacity to connect its viewer with a larger history surrounding them. Ito’s work certainly has prompted me to deepen my inward self-exploration as it connects to generational wounds that bleed into my present.

Aptly titled, Into the Abyss (2022), a unique C-Print of sunlight developed film, hangs on the Gallery’s entrance wall, a rectangular plate of aluminum dibond emblazoned with blood-red word pairings against its smooth black surface. The text couples a pronoun and a noun, pronoun + noun, pronoun + noun, pronoun + noun… endlessly in columns that eventually obscure toward the bottom. These groupings compose a solemn poetry to ponder while sojourning through and beyond the gallery walls with phrases pertaining to: “their + war,” “his + war,” “his + weapons,” “your + weapons,” “your + peace.” With a repetition that references an obsessive compulsive sequence of words, Into the Abyss forces me to recall my own journey through healing the consequences of generational trauma.

Kei Ito, Into the Abyss, 2022. Unique C-Print film mounted on aluminum dibond, laminate, 40x32x1 in.

Though different circumstances, Ito’s encapsulation of heirloom agony, or legacies of passed down emotional damages, is something that resonates in a myriad of settings yet lacks the recognition and understanding it deserves. I particularly love this print because it echoes a period in my early childhood where I would repeat a list of the same, completely arbitrary “safe” phrases in instances of high anxiety in a set numerical quantity. As a child the specific recitation of my “safe” words calmed my autonomic nervous system as an act of defense in a situation in which I felt my safety or autonomy was compromised. In retrospect of more than fifteen years (and with professionally guided coping strategies) I can still remember my “safe” phrases – no longer with a feeling of desperate relief, but a feeling of grief for a waning childhood of which I had little concept at the time and a stronger desire to console my child self and restore a sense of security. Ito’s phrases, while clearly intentionally correlated, illustrate the sequences of inner thoughts in an ordered but increasingly blurry image synonymous with memory. Memories of my “safe” words, survival mechanisms, and certain traumatic instances of my life flicker through my mind like an orderly reel of film or text until the clarity vanishes in a manner similar to the visual qualities of Into the Abyss and other works in the Stamp Gallery, including a dual Kodak slide projection piece titled Teach Me How to Love This World (2022), in which the same pronoun + noun couples project on the wall.

Kei Ito, Teach Me How to Love This World, 2022. 35mm slide, Kodak carousel projectors.

Ito’s exhibition has offered a narrative and a solidarity to trauma by employing the acute dichotomy between war and peace. His work in the gallery also translates the severity of war and of peace individually. If I relate these concepts to my own journey with mental health I can visualize how my mind and my body have at times existed at war with one another, both seeking the same peace from trauma, but disconnected. The lack of harmony enables a cascade of conflict, confusion, and fear. Being at war with the self or warring (in survival mode) against a harmful situation unfolds in a complex manner, especially if that trauma is carried through multiple generations. The devastations of war can bare themselves physically, but often, as the scars fade, the invisible wounds, emotional traumas, anxiety, trauma-induced ADHD, PTSD, and cPTSD rage more severely. The sinister aftermath of battle (both literal and metaphorical), when the dust has settled, too often leaves the survivor’s remaining injuries unrecognized, unfinished, on the inside, and sometimes resurfacing as panic attacks, racing heart rates, an urge to flee—the list goes on. There is seldom peace immediately after a trauma. Without proper time and care for wounds to heal, injuries can fester and compound. War and peace are not black and white; the space between is easier to leave hidden, but that gray space is also the only ground for true healing. The path to peace can take generations, making “peace” no easy feat. Accordingly, some of the world’s best efforts at “keeping the peace” do little more than apply palliative bandages after onslaughts of violence to cover a deadly (unsightly) injury. 

Occupying the floor with ash on a panel of wood, Riddle of Peace/War (2022-ongoing) considers these layered topics by questioning who will ultimately be sacrificed for either “war” or “peace.” A misconstrued conception of the means by which to secure peace tips a violent scale for which humanity will always pay the price. Additionally, the individual handling of “war” and “peace” can also stand as a microcosm for the global struggle. Seeking peace internally can create desperation as it does within larger politics with fear and anxiety at their core. This desperation, anxiety, and fear screams, “seek peace BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.” However, speaking from the individual level, I have only been able to grasp authentic peace within myself through a place of care and unconditional love for the covered parts of myself deemed unfit to express in the open. Releasing blame, shame, and fear and growing in empathy for the parts of myself and my childhood that I was conditioned to keep hidden have been the only ways to work through the traumas in my own story and continue growing from a stronger foundation. Aptly constructing and simultaneously destroying the distinctions between “war” and “peace,” Ito’s exhibition demonstrates the necessity of considering life from multiple angles and reveals that nothing is truly black and white. Furthermore, my “path to peace” is an evolving effort, but at its center I have been learning to remove the shame in an effort to understand all parts of myself, just as Ito removes shaming from his exhibition for those who inflict violence in their efforts for “peace” recalled in his works. Even the title of the exhibition, Teach Me How to Love This World, acts as a macro glance for the core requisite of my inner healing, which could read: Teach Me How to Love Myself. 

Kei Ito, Riddle of Peace/War, 2022-ongoing. Ash, wooden platform.

Though somber, Ito’s exhibition is not hopeless. On the contrary, his work is full of hope. Nothing difficult disappears by ignoring it; peace is not possible without confronting daunting realities and pushing through them with eyes and heart wide open. Ito’s work does just that. It is bearing the face of questions the world is afraid to ask, and bravely calling for healing in the gray areas. If nothing else, Teach Me How to Love This World has inspired a level of self-reflection and further affirmation of the importance of empathy and love toward myself and in confronting the world around me. Ito’s exhibition implores, “teach me how to love this world.” I suggest that a place to start is learning how to love ourselves.

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Kei Ito’s work is included in Teach Me How to Love This World at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from October 19 – December 10, 2022. 

For more information on Kei ito, visit http://www.kei-ito.com/.

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Gone But Not Forgotten: Kei Ito’s “Riddle of Peace/War” as a Reflection of the Past and Warning for the Future

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Teach Me How To Love This World from October 19th to December 10th, 2022, at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by James Cho

Emblazoned on the floor of the gallery lies Kei Ito’s Riddle of Peace/War. Made solely of loose, stenciled ash on a wooden platform, the work not only physically presents viewers with the dichotomy between World War II and the ensuing peace for America, but also guides viewers through the bombing. 

“WHO WILL BE THE NEXT SACRIFICE FOR THE PEACE? WHO WILL BE THE NEXT SACRIFICE FOR THE WAR?”

Kei Ito, Riddle of Peace/War. 2022 – ongoing. Ash, wooden platform.

By asking viewers these two questions, Ito creates this “riddle” about World War II and its aftermath. Despite the war having ended and peace being restored to the US, Japan was left in ruins and Europe alongside the rest of the world would soon face the Cold War between the US and the USSR. For Japan, the end of the war, signalled by warning sirens similar to those playing from the radios in Ito’s sound installation Talking Heads, left its mark on Ito’s grandfather, who witnessed the bombing of Hiroshima firsthand. Much like how his grandfather’s family, friends, and colleagues in the city left only outlines of where they stood when the nuke exploded, so too does Ito’s Riddle of Peace/War. 

Riddle of Peace/War (detail)

In tandem with the rest of the exhibition, Riddle of Peace/War serves as Ito’s way of performing the scene at Hiroshima that his grandfather experienced. Even though Ito himself isn’t present to act in this performance, he has extracted key parts of that day and placed them into the exhibition for all to see as if he were. The direct aftermath of what Ito’s grandfather witnessed at Hiroshima is dashed across Riddle of Peace/War as a warning for future generations against repeating this tragedy, as Ito explained during his artist talk at the Gallery on October 20. Going further than Japan, however, Ito uses Talking Heads to further his “universal” dichotomy of war and peace across time by sounding nuclear sirens from Hawaii and Japan during North Korean nuclear testing in recent years and Ukrainian sirens after an air raid by Russia from the radio on the right while peace messages emanate from the radio on the left. In this way, the central theme of the dichotomy of peace and war comes to fruition in both Riddle of Peace/War and Talking Heads. When addressing Riddle of Peace/War during his talk, Ito continued to stress the connections between generational trauma worldwide, suggesting that 9/11 in the US paralleled the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as events that were not only “delicate” but so “fuelled by the idea of national identity that it became so taboo to talk to the victims” of the Cold War, 9/11, the war in Ukraine, and for Ito, the bombing that his grandfather witnessed. 

But let’s get back to the physical organization of Riddle of Peace/War instead of its psychological organization. The ephemerality of the text, which can be deformed by a slight unsettling of the ash, serves as a reminder of the fleeting quality of both life and memory. The outlines of those vaporized from the bombings in Japan slowly fade, while new buildings rise from the ashes of those destroyed, sacrificed for “peace in our time.” Just as the ash stenciled into Ito’s questions can be easily blown away by a simple sneeze or brisk walk over the course of time, the victims of the wars of the past and of ongoing conflicts today, coupled with the renewed threat of nuclear warfare with Russia, are also delicate. While decades have passed since these events and their outlines are physically gone, they will never be truly forgotten, as a kind of psychological object permanence. If we forget, we are doomed to repeat an endless cycle of sacrifice for the sake of war and peace, reducing the magnitude of these tragedies and their aftermath to nothing more than a couple of lines in a history book. 

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Installation and Impermanence

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Teach Me To Love This World by Kei Ito, October 19 to December 10, 2022, at the Stamp Gallery | Written by Oliver Foley

When you think of an art gallery, what first comes to mind? For many, the mental image consists solely of paintings upon a blank, sterile wall. Yet, in Kei Ito’s new exhibit at Stamp Gallery, we find ourselves breaking out of this often limiting preconception. Ito’s Teach Me To Love This World is a work of installation art: the individual pieces are designed specifically for the space that they inhabit in the gallery, creating a unified sensory experience beyond that of traditional framed artworks. Ito constructs a chaotic audiovisual environment of multimedia artworks which immerses the viewer in the “liminal space between peace and war,” as he describes it. “I started as a photographer where I had this idea that photography can exist beyond a ‘frame on a wall,’ where art can be activated by the inclusion of audience and space,” Ito said. “Thus it was natural for me to dive into the world of installation art.”

Inherent to the art of installation is the theme of impermanence. The experience of an installation is unique to the space and time it is designed for. Although many philosophies regard change as a problem to be solved, Ito adopts it as a means of artistic expression. Every component of this exhibit accentuates the underlying impermanence of art, war, peace, life, death, time, space, and sound. One piece in particular, which highlights a very distinct take on the theme, is Talking Heads. 

Kei Ito, Talking Heads (2022). Analog radio, two-channel audio, media player, radio transmitter, acrylic paint. 9-minute loop.

Talking Heads consists of two radios, each playing a different channel. Yet, these are no ordinary radio stations: Ito broadcasts his own audio through the airwaves. A transmitter sends two different signals to each radio, named Peace Radio and War Radio. “I want the audience to place their head between the two radios, getting disoriented by the bombardment of audio … when the audience places themself in the middle of these two radios, the positioning becomes the metaphors of the liminal space we as society exist in right now,” Ito replied when I asked him how he intended the piece to be experienced. Just as war and peace are fleeting things, so too is the auditory experience of this piece: the chaotic mix of passing words, sounds of war, and analog static puts the listener in a trancelike state. 

“Who will be the next sacrifice for war…” the radio says. As if caught in a disagreement, the parallel radio replies, “who will be the next sacrifice for peace?” They argue atop the slow hum of wind, as tension rises. Air raid sirens begin as the urgent, foreboding tones of news broadcasters creep up from the static. The anxiety builds to a horrific crescendo as the sounds of war fill the room. Then, as suddenly as they began, the sirens cease, and the broadcast returns to a quiet hum, only interrupted by the refrain, “Who will be the next sacrifice for war… who will be the next sacrifice for peace.” But this peace is only transient, no matter how comforting it may feel. 

When I first placed my head between the radios, I was surprised by the altered state of sensory perception it provoked. During the “wartime,” I could hardly recall the sense of calm that the peaceful, churning static inspired. This piece encourages the listener to notice themselves becoming “trapped in the moment” and become aware of  their unconscious fear of change.

Talking Heads is just one of many pieces in this exhibit which exemplify impermanence. Elsewhere in the gallery, Ito presents the audience with text made of loose ash, infinite permutations of projected text, relics of the past and forecasts of the future. All of reality is governed by change, and Ito’s embrace of change in Teach Me To Love This World results in one of the most compelling installation exhibits you will have the pleasure of visiting. 

Teach Me How to Love This World: Kei Ito will be on view in The Stamp Gallery at the University of Maryland, College Park from October 19 through December 10, 2022. For more information on Kei Ito and his work, visit http://www.kei-ito.com/.

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Shadow-Forms in Hae Won Sohn’s “Unspoken Volumes”

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Unspoken Volumes from August 29th to October 8th, 2022, at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Oliver Foley

The Made Maker (top) with Risk Dawn (bottom) (both 2022)

As we enter the final week of Unspoken Volumes, Hae Won Sohn’s show at the Stamp Gallery, I find myself considering the effects that this art has had on me through hours of sitting with it. Although the impressions of gallery visitors, curators, critics, and contemporaries often define the written legacy of a work, many fascinating perspectives are held by the humble docents and guards of the art. Sometimes spending longer hours with the art than the artists themselves, art attendants are seldom without a unique take on the works which they oversee. In my hours of sitting at the desk, walking through the gallery, and gazing at the beautiful forms of Sohn’s sculptures, one specific theme repeatedly came up: shadowplay. The shadows of Sohn’s artworks were as tangible and concrete as the three-dimensional works of plaster, clay, and paper.

In addition to simply providing an exhibit’s worth of art for the Gallery, Hae Won Sohn played a large role in the installation of the exhibit. As a result, every decision of the gallery’s flow contributes to her great design. The lighting design, in particular, captured my eyes through my days in the Gallery. The angling of the lights and placement of the pieces resulted in stunningly complex shadows, such as The Made Maker.

“Blurry objects,” a concept Sohn developed through this work, is exemplified in the play between the tangible and intangible objects of the show. Shadows take the form of transition, blurriness of the hard-edged spaces we inhabit; potential beyond what is defined by the physical and temporal world. Shadows define and defy our brain’s understanding of the world, of the three dimensional, and even of the passage of time. By constructing objects which exist simultaneously in two- and three- dimensional worlds, Hae Won Sohn communicates the incommunicable blur of space through the “gray areas” in between. Shadows depend on the three dimensional to exist, but objects in space depend on light and shadow to be observed. These were the recurring thoughts in my mind all throughout the time I shared with these pieces.

Growing Thin (2022)

Sometimes, the ornaments and subtle architectures of the spaces we pass through go unnoticed. Perhaps this subconscious “smudging” of landscapes is the blur which Sohn pursues. Yet, even more than the architectural thresholds, edges, and accents, the most subconscious element of our day-to-day perceptions is the shadow. We train ourselves to ignore it, just like we ignore the trim of the rooftop, the rosettes and finials of our furnishings. By leaving nothing but the liminal form, the ornament and its ever-constant shadow, Hae Won Sohn gives the viewer the eyes to see what their brain blurs. One particularly beautiful example of this theme is the piece Growing Thin. My hours at the desk provoked thoughts of chicken-and-egg games between the illumination and the illuminated. Magic is alive within the plaster-cast object and its own light-cast into the two dimensional. I found myself profoundly affected by Sohn’s installation.

With only fours days left to see Unspoken Volumes, I encourage anyone to come give it one last look!

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Beyond Words In Unspoken Volumes: Motifs of Duality and the Conceptual “Double”

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Unspoken Volumes from August 29th to October 8th, 2022 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Hannah Zozobrado

How is it possible for the complexities of freely expressed art to be effectively labeled, when they can only be limited through the confining medium of words? In my eyes, words of finite interpretations hold nearly no significance against the boundless expositions of art; in my eyes, to find the right words befitting of the entity that it describes is a mission in itself. 

Yet, the New York-based artist Hae Won Sohn beautifully, all-encompassingly captured the essence of her solo exhibit through her title “Unspoken Volumes,” in which her work ironically does speak volumes. A deep dive into the morphological anatomy of the two-word exhibition title may look like this:

Unspoken (adj):

1. Quiet; silent    2. Not communicated; not expressed; no wall labels    3. Tacit; “as if…”

4. Figurative.

Volumes (n.):

1. The space within or occupied by a form 2. The power of sound 3. Individual books in a series.

4. Physical.

Hitting the mark across all meanings of each word, “Unspoken Volumes” has the perfect telltale title to accurately embrace the environment in this exhibition: 

Sohn’s art resides in a quiet room of homely, charming set-up, in which her digital media and horizontally-aligned works – all comprising and occupying their respective spaces – either adorn the walls or stand upright in different sections of the gallery, as if they are continuations of one another; as if they are to be explored like separate parts of the same series. Her art sits naturally in its space, comfortably bare without wall labels as though without a name, only casually existing between the Figurative and the Physical — between the Unspoken and the densely Voluminous.

Beyond a lesson in semantics, “Unspoken Volumes” is more than just a flexible name; in the same way that words can have multiple meanings, and in the same way that the words “Unspoken” and “Volumes” have connotations nearly opposite of the other, each seemingly singular piece by Sohn can be interpreted to have more than one layer – more specifically, two. It is, in fact, Sohn’s intention to “[outline] blurs and [trace] gray areas in between… material and form; subject and object.” Finding the middle ground between the two calls for their distinction, first. Here is where Sohn cleverly uses the concept of doubles to emphasize blurriness.

When I first arrived on campus and had the chance to walk through the gallery, what first struck me was Sohn’s way of working with the gallery space; light and shadows, as well as color, seemed to be a medium for her to further explore the blurry middle between the metaphysical and physical.

For example, the image to the left is a photo of Sohn’s plaster piece, situated in one of the more hidden and overlooked spaces of the gallery solely due to the fact that the area is blocked off by a bench and projector; even I, myself, nearly missed this piece due to the plaster’s color sneakily blending into the wall. 

However, upon closer inspection, the light and shadow —  two generally rivaling concepts — merge at some point along the body of the crescent-looking plaster. Given that the piece’s title is “Luna,” which is the Spanish translation of the English “Moon,” this is a reference to the two sides of our moon — the illuminated side that we always see, and the dark side that we never see. Interestingly enough, the line at which light and dark meet is not vertically straight throughout the entire piece, as though there is no clear center; a blur.

Rather than only the lighting helping scope the bounds of this conceptual blur, Sohn uses color. The image to the left is a photo of another one of Sohn’s works titled “Owl,” which was made with plaster, gypsum cement, and oxide pigments.

As I thought about what it meant to give this two-piece work a singular title, I realized that this ostensible ‘split’ between the coupled left and right was a red herring. For this particular piece, it took having to discover the title “Owl” and ridding my earlier notion of duality in order to see that opposing color schemes served to distract from the bigger picture of an owl staring back at me. 

Upon first looking at the concept behind “Unspoken Volumes” and walking through the art on display, I couldn’t help but remember an exhibition I loved and got to see a few weeks prior over the summer in Washington D.C.’s National Gallery of Art; I took the following photo of the exhibition outline in awe of the concept: 

That had been my first time internalizing the purpose behind doubles and dualities in art. Having Sohn’s work now displayed in the Stamp Gallery is a pleasant treat to expand my thinking of how art’s engagement with doubles can be delivered through various means in order to produce different meanings in ways that often cannot be described with mere words.

Sohn’s art once fueled an interesting conversation I had with my friend. My friend, who stopped by the gallery to see the Unspoken Volumes exhibition, had asked me: “Which do you think is more important in art, intention or craft?” 

I think I must have said something along the lines of: “Maybe somewhere in the [blurry] middle.”


Unspoken Volumes: Hae Won Sohn will be in The Stamp Gallery at the University of Maryland, College Park from August 29th to October 8th, 2022. For more information on Hae Won Sohn and her work, visit https://haewonsohn.com/

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Lion Heart: More than Just a Name

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Unspoken Volumes from August 29th to October 8th, 2022, at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Ellen Zhang

Protruding from the white walls of the Stamp Gallery is Lion Heart – a small yet powerful sculpture. Despite the fact that it is the size of my hand, artist Hae Won Sohn has fit in a plethora of sharp edges, rounded surfaces, and all sorts of visual textures. With a somewhat rounded top and pointed bottom, the contours bear an uncanny resemblance to an actual heart. Aside from its physical similarities, Sohn’s sculpture also resembles the metaphorical meaning of a lion heart. From a denotative perspective, a lion heart is someone who is courageous and risk-taking. In Lion Heart, I see an artist who exhibits these qualities. 

Shifting your position to the right of Lion Heart, you’ll notice two interesting choices Sohn has made in her creative process. First, a rigid edge that cuts through the piece like a shard of glass penetrating the heart. It protrudes out at an angle, obstructing the viewer’s ability to see the entirety of the piece from one position. Through this bold choice, Sohn exemplifies the concept of boundaries – something that forces us to look at things from different angles (almost literally) to find our answers. As a viewer, I find myself viewing her art from all sorts of directions and viewpoints to answer my own questions about the connection between the sculpture and its name. 

Then, shifting your position to the left of Lion Heart, you’ll see a different concept embodied by the sculpture’s forms. From this perspective, the lines are soft and well-blended into flat surfaces. Everything seems blurred, but this is on purpose. Once again, Sohn has cleverly incorporated a way to express the metaphorical themes of her exhibition through the sculpture. The practice of blurriness, as described by the artist herself, is based on the notion that “some ideas and forms seem to become clearer in the blur.” According to Sohn, “This perhaps comes from my understanding of blurriness as more embracing of intrusions and embodying higher potential than what appears to be more defined.” The contrast between the smooth, flat surface and sharp ridges on the right side indicates that Sohn is “embracing intrusions” during her creative process. As a result, her work leaves viewers with an understanding of the nuanced meanings behind her work. When observing Lion Heart from the right, you can see qualities of bravery and confidence through the jagged and well-defined edges. From the left, you can see qualities of calmness and simplicity through the blunted surfaces. The duality in the interpretations of her work emerges because of Sohn’s own ability to embrace intrusions while creating her work. 

Sohn is certainly an artist with a “lion heart.” She welcomes disruptions in her own thinking process, thus enabling her to incorporate bold contrasts in the forms and shapes of her work. Through Unspoken Volumes, Sohn is even able to challenge her viewers to include boundaries and blurriness in their own thinking. She encourages us to surpass boundaries and look at questions from all angles. She also encourages us to embrace intrusions in our own thought processes, sparking internal conversations provoked by gray areas – terms, subjects, and objects that do not conform to a singular category. 

 
Lion Heart is included in Unspoken Volumes at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from August 29th to October 8th, 2022. For more information on Hae Won Sohn, visit https://haewonsohn.com/. For more information on Unspoken Volumes and related events, visit https://stamp.umd.edu/centers/stamp_gallery.

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A flower in plain sight: Connections between Hae Won Sohn’s “Wallflower (orchid)” and the Papilionanthe Miss Joaquim of Singapore

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Unspoken Volumes from August 29th to October 8th, 2022, at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by James Cho

Resting on the floor of the Gallery sits Wallflower (orchid), a mixed-media sculpture by Hae Won Sohn, among the other wondrous pieces of the Unspoken Volumes exhibition. One of three artworks titled “Wallflower” in the gallery, (orchid) was born from Sohn’s desire to create artwork that stands by itself without a pedestal or wall, while the other two sculptures, Wallflower (thatch village) and Wallflower (King Moth) occupy wall space. Moreover, though it may not seem like it, Wallflower (orchid) is made of cardboard collected from boxes of shipments to Sohn’s studio that she folded repeatedly, as well as tape, pushpins, acrylic, and plaster painted over with a coat of light purple. Like a real orchid, visitors can distinguish the smaller petals flanking the mouth of the orchid and the third, larger petal behind the mouth of the flower. But if you kneel down and take a closer look at Wallflower (orchid), you can see how this blur of materials comes together to create not just the general form of an orchid, but also the organic folds and even the veins of the flower. This speaks volumes about the unity Sohn is able to achieve in juxtaposing both geometric and organic forms through materials of unique origins.

Hae Won Sohn, Wallflower (orchid), 2022. Cardboard, tape, pushpins, acrylic, plaster.

It also speaks to the very essence of what orchids represent in places like Singapore, where I grew up. Notably, the national flower of Singapore is the Vanda Miss Joaquim orchid, hybridized by the orchid’s namesake Agnes Joaquim in 1893, itself underwent a rebirth recently. The recategorization under the Papilionanthe genus acts as an apt development in the context of the “blurriness” concept that Sohn expresses in all her artwork in the Gallery. For reasons besides this name change, the Miss Joaquim orchid was chosen as the national flower because: 

“As the flower most associated with hybrids, the orchid is also a symbol of our multicultural heritage. It is representative of the harmony among our ethnic communities, as well as with our many foreign visitors.”

A bouquet of Papilionanthe Miss Joaquim orchids, originally bred in 1983 by Agnes Joaquim.

Mr. Mah Bow Tan, Minister for National Development, at the Singapore Orchid Show, 2006

Through this symbolism, Wallflower (orchid) serves as a manifestation of Mr. Tan’s belief in the harmony of the Singaporean people, in the very same manner in which the mix of cardboard, plaster, and other materials come together in Wallflower (orchid) today. Like Singapore, the artwork as a whole blurs the lines between its materials to become a single being. Just like how the hybridized shape and color of the Miss Joaquim orchid carry this message of cultural unity, Wallflower (orchid) carries the stories of its individual parts that have blurred together into this new design. 

The choice of giving the title of “wallflower” to this piece is quite puzzling, though, when compared to the other two works in the gallery that bear the same title. The formal definitions for a wallflower is that of a European flower that is either yellow, orange, or brown in nature, or when describing a person characterized as being shy or awkward. But unlike Wallflower (King Moth) and Wallflower (thatch village), which are both situated on walls facing away from the gallery’s windows and in indirect light as their name implies, Wallflower (orchid) does not live up to the definition of a wallflower. Instead, it basks in the direct light of two overhanging spotlights on the open floor of the Gallery. Because of this stylistic choice in (orchid)’s presentation that contradicts the concept of a wallflower, visitors may wonder as to why Sohn chose to do so, especially since the other two Wallflower artworks are of similar proportions to Wallflower (orchid).

Regardless, both Wallflower (orchid) and the Miss Joaquim orchids illustrate how a simple yet beautiful design composed of materials with differing origins together represent the many “unspoken volumes” of their past and future. Whether that be the materials of the Wallflower (orchid), or Miss Agnes Joaquim’s hybridization of orchids into the Papilionanthe Miss Joaquim, both capture the essence of harmony and unity in their current form. 

Hae Won Sohn’s work is included in Unspoken Volumes at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from August 29th to October 8th, 2022. For more information on Hae Won Sohn, visit https://haewonsohn.com/. For more information on Unspoken Volumes and related events, visit https://stamp.umd.edu/centers/stamp_gallery.

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An Introduction to Hae Won Sohn’s Solo Exhibition; Humbled by Unspoken Volumes

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Unspoken Volumes from August 29 to October 8, 2022 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Isabella Chilcoat

Hae Won Sohn, a New York-based artist and craftswoman, has graced the Stamp Gallery with a new art presence that straddles the unspoken and the overlooked crevices between shape, color, and space. Dovetailing three-dimensional objects and multimedia work, Sohn’s minimalist creations consume the gallery’s white walls in a breathy pastel mirage that I desperately want to consume. I cannot describe her palette better than melted ice cream colors complete with an offering that ranges from neapolitan to mint chip. After visiting this exhibition viewers will leave wanting at least two scoops. 

Hae Won Sohn, chocolate milk cow milk, 2022. Plaster and oxide pigment. Currently on loan at the Stamp Gallery, College Park, MD.

But the real scoop is better than everyone’s favorite creamy delight. Take chocolate milk cow milk, 2022: Made of plaster and milk chocolatey brown oxide pigments, this triptych (collection of three) and a half cast sculpture set blooms from the gallery’s main wall. Parallel to the exterior windows, chocolate milk cow milk is visible to any person perusing the hallway, but it is worth moving closer. From a more intimate distance, one can examine the swirled pigments within each object’s silky crescent surface. Chocolate milk cow milk exemplifies Sohn’s conception of “burry objects,” a phenomenon she describes as both a “physical and metaphorical quality of [her] work in [her] vision which occurs as a result of exploring and adjusting distances through(out) time.” None of her works are detached from their origin, process, or the space they occupy. Accordingly, each of the works in Unspoken Volumes encompasses the cooperation of every contributing source which ensured the presence of the objects in the room. This includes the personal and the material antecedents that work together to make her art making possible – initial inspiration, the sources of material, molds, media, availability of exhibition space, reception of the work, and individual response to name a few. Through an appreciation of each work’s origins coupled with the present viewing moment, Sohn’s art grows in complexity while appearing as a simple form. In essence, the space feels complete. Her art is so inclusive to process and presence that walking into the gallery translates a deep calm or inner satisfaction. 

” Some ideas and forms seem to become clearer in the blur. This perhaps happens from my
understanding of blurriness to being more embracing of intrusions and embodying higher
potential and energy compared to what appears to be more defined. “

Sohn, unspoken volumes artist statement, 2022.

An all-encompassing blurriness arises through observation of Unspoken Volumes from a macro and micro perspective. The space as a whole breathes as if every object pumps in a synchronized heartbeat while the individual pieces still emit a cadence of their own. I can relate to the idea of blurriness in my own attempts to grasp the origins of each piece of art and my present interpretation at the same time. These lines of comprehension become fuzzy the harder I ponder over one of Sohn’s smooth sculpture surfaces and the shadows cast between objects in a set. I am overwhelmed by the compositions Sohn has crafted through fundamental art elements juxtaposed with their conceptual depths that exceed the places from where I stand to observe them. Even the best images fail to capture the multitudes Sohn’s works contain; something as simple as an alteration to lighting or angle of viewing reveals a whole new landscape for each piece. I argue the modesty of abstracted forms alone attests to the beauty of contemporary art as a whole, and Unspoken Volumes is no exception.

various angles of Sohn’s chocolate milk cow milk, 2022, in the Stamp Gallery

Come visit the Stamp Gallery to explore this existential landscape cast by Unspoken Volumes for yourself, and tune in to hear from the artist herself on Thursday, Sep 8, 2022 during her artist talk in the space from 6:30-8:00 pm.

Hae Won Sohn’s work is included in Unspoken Volumes at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from August 29 to October 8, 2022.

Sohn will deliver an artist talk on Unspoken Volumes in the Gallery on September 8, 2022, 6:30-8:00pm. For more information on Hae Won Sohn, visit https://haewonsohn.com .