[Gallery Walk] What Remains After Touch... Why Have Uhm Jungsoon’s Elephants Become Blurred?

Hakgojae, Uhm Jungsoon Solo Exhibition ‘Bopuplagi?Tactile Incident’

Smaller Elephants, Lower Vantage... An Exhibition Revealed Only Up Close

From a Symbol of Power to Sensation and Experience... A Tactile Experiment That Challenges Visual Perception

Memories Left on the Fingertips... Reconsidering ‘Seeing’ Through the Sense of Touch

At the entrance of the exhibition hall, there are three elephants on display.

Exhibition view of Eom Jeongsun's solo exhibition 'Bopuragi - Tactile Event'. Photo by Hakgojae

They are too small to be simply glanced at, and they are not placed to be viewed from a distance. When you approach, they are within arm’s reach. The exhibition begins from this low vantage point.

However, these elephants are different from the familiar images we have in mind. Rather than being instantly recognizable forms, they exist as truncated corners, vanished outlines, and traces reminiscent of lint. While the elephant remains at the center of this exhibition, it no longer stands merely to be seen. Instead, it lingers like a sensation that brushes past your fingertips.

Uhm Jungsoon’s solo exhibition ‘Bopuplagi-Tactile Incident,’ which opened on February 26 at Hakgojae in Samcheong-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, is an exhibition closer to ‘experiencing’ than ‘seeing.’ The artist has long used the elephant as a symbol of power and enormity, but in this exhibition, that symbolism is fragmented and blurred. The elephant’s trunk disappears, and the whole is divided into parts. Instead of a complete shape, what remains are fragments and remnants.

Jeongsoon Eom_Undecorated Rhythm 1-5, 2025, Acrylic on Paper, Tapestry, 76x56cm. Photo by Hakgojae

The artist does not see this incompleteness as a deficiency. On the contrary, she suggests that the part is a pathway to the whole. She believes that humans always encounter objects only as parts, and that it is only when these parts accumulate that the world opens up. The Buddhist parable of blind people touching an elephant and imagining the whole through their individual senses is invoked once again in this exhibition. Instead of a single center, there are multiple points of origin. Visitors can enter the exhibition from any corner.

The word most frequently mentioned in this exhibition is ‘Bopuplagi’ (lint). The lint created when visitors touched artworks at the biennale would ordinarily be removed as traces. The artist interprets it as the result of countless layers of body heat, friction, emotion, and time. What would otherwise be discarded remnants become the most active material in this exhibition. The act of touching leaves traces and at the same time erases images.

This flow continues in the paintings. Color spreads like rhythm, rather than explaining a symbol. In particular, green acts as a sensation that suggests the state of the body, rather than pointing to a specific meaning. The canvas does not demand a message. Instead, it leaves behind the vibration of sensation. This painting is closer to how it remains, rather than what it says.

Um Jeongsun_Moment 2001-1, 2026, 1,000 Braille Textbooks, Aluminum Profiles, Electric Fan, 250x1000x890x800cm, Variable Installation. Photo by Hakgojae

The work with Braille books placed in one corner of the exhibition hall most directly reveals the questions posed by the exhibition. The books written in graphite become smudged the more they are touched. The act of reading soon becomes an act of erasing. The elephant inside the book disappears, but a black trace remains on the fingertips. The information that could be read with the eyes vanishes, leaving only the sensations that linger in the body. The artist presents this as the ‘paradox of reading.’

The ‘incident’ in the exhibition’s title does not refer to a grand occasion. Here, an incident is closer to the moment when a perspective subtly shifts. Minor acts such as touching, friction, and the accumulation of time rearrange the hierarchy of sensations. When the moment arrives that perception moves beyond visual centrality and sensations are placed on an equal plane, the exhibition truly comes alive.

Artist Um Jungsoon stands in front of the work "The Elephant Without a Nose 4." This exhibition forefronts various works that draw the audience's senses into the exhibition through touch and experience. Photo by Kim Heeyoon

After viewing the exhibition, the elephant is not remembered as a clear image. Instead, it remains like a sensation once touched somewhere. The artist hopes that visitors will ‘experience and move on’ from the elephant rather than ‘understand’ it. Even if it cannot be explained in words, something remains in the body. That is the minimal trace this exhibition intends to leave behind.

As you leave the exhibition, you instinctively glance down at your hands. What you touched is unclear, yet the sensation still lingers. The exhibition runs until March 28.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.