ART BUSAN – Day, Suspended

For this exhibition, Galerie Philia presents a solo project by Saerom Yoon, unfolding a body of work in which material becomes a vessel for memory, and perception is approached as a relational and temporal condition.

Rooted in Ygaël Attali’s curatorial approach — One that understands design not as object, but as a field of relations between form, space, and experience, the exhibition is conceived as a perceptual environment rather than a presentation of discrete works. What is at stake is not the visibility of objects, but the conditions through which they appear.

Trained in woodworking and furniture design, Yoon develops a practice that moves away from construction toward suspension. His works do not assert structure; they hold it in abeyance. Through the use of layered resin, he creates forms that appear both present and withdrawn, as if partially absorbed by their own materiality.

The exhibition unfolds through a constellation of works from the A Piece of One Day series alongside elements from the Crystal Series, establishing a dialogue between verticality, surface, and object. Across these works, color is not applied but embedded, held within successive layers, diffused through thickness, and revealed only through duration.

The Pray sculptures introduce a vertical axis that structures the space. Composed of repeated segments, they unfold as measured rhythms rather than singular forms. Their stacked geometry evokes both totemic presence and architectural modulation, while their translucency destabilizes their apparent mass. They appear less constructed than slowly accumulated, as if time itself had taken form.

In contrast, the wall pieces operate as zones of perceptual immersion. Gradients emerge softly from within milky surfaces, dissolving contours and resisting fixation. The image is never fully given; it appears, recedes, and reforms depending on the viewer’s position. Perception here is not immediate, but negotiated.

The Crystal Series extends this logic into the realm of functional objects. Consoles and tables, while structurally precise, appear almost dematerialized. Their volumes capture and refract light, producing subtle chromatic shifts that transform their presence throughout the day. Function remains, but is displaced, absorbed into a broader experiential field.

The exhibition is conceived as a spatial composition in which each work exists in relation to the others, and to the viewer’s movement. Rather than imposing a narrative, it constructs a field of resonances, between density and dissolution, presence and withdrawal, object and atmosphere.

What emerges is not a set of autonomous pieces, but a condition: a suspended moment in which time, memory, and matter briefly coincide.

Curated by Ygael Attali