Running from Oct 2018 at Taekwang Group Sehwa Museum of Art, “Flexible Space” is an exhibition about ‘fiber’ and ‘space.’ With a focus on ‘open space’ under the museum’s slogan “An Open Museum in the Heart of the City,” the exhibition explores the possibility of fiber as a medium that shows its full potential in a space.

Contemporary art and its exhibition space are still perceived as difficult by the general public. Also, fiber art is regarded as one of the fields of crafts despite the medium’s formative potential, and its value has not been assessed appropriately in the mainstream art history to date. Focusing on the possibility of fiber, the exhibition offers a flexible encounter of fiber and space to suggest a flexible exhibition space that the public may feel familiar and comfortable with. To make this encounter happen, five contemporary artists who use fiber as a material, Kang Eun Hye, Roh Il Hoon, Park Hye Won, Jeong Daun and Cha Seung Ean display their works best fit for Sehwa Museum of Art.

The audience will be able to experience organically changing art space rather than rigid one in a white cube at this exhibition. The featured works actively communicate with space and tell various stories using physical properties of fiber by reinterpreting traditional textile techniques like weaving and showcasing art pieces including objects made with optical fibers, networked threads to show relationships between spaces, space-drawings using fabrics and houses wound by threads. Through this exhibition, visitors will be able to understand the properties of fiber naturally in the flexible space, figure out the possibilities of fiber as a medium for total art and find art museums more comfortable.

Taekwang Industrial and Daehan Synthetic Fiber provided threads for the artists to make artworks for this exhibition. We hope that the exhibition will contribute to the development of art and culture in Korea and present a positive vision for the textile industry by encouraging artists to create new works, through generous cultural sponsorships.