Up Close: Oum Jeongsoon
By Tiffany Luk
Installation view of OUM JEONGSOON’s Elephant Without a Trunk, 2022, iron sheet and wool tapestry, 300 × 274 × 307 cm, at the 14th Gwangju Biennale, 2023. Photo by Choi Myoung Jin. Copyright and courtesy the artist.
In an art space, the senses typically activated are the visual, auditory, sometimes olfactory, but rarely the haptic. At the 14th Gwangju Biennale, “soft and weak like water,” the inaugural recipient of the now-canceled Park Seo-Bo Art Prize, Korean multimedia artist Oum Jeongsoon, presented a work that emphasized the tactile nature of art that is so often overlooked—and usually discouraged. Here, signage on the floor read: “This work can be touched to feel the texture.” Typically a sight that would send gallery attendants and security into a tailspin, visitors were seen running their hands over three of the four large-scale sculptures comprising Oum’s Elephant Without a Trunk (2023).
