Enunciation of bless-ed-ness

2021
Hand-shredded silk flowers, vinyl print, hand-blown glass, and river water
16 ft x 26 ft
Redux Contemporary Art Center, Charleston, South Carolina
Two-person show with Hannah Barnes, curated by Susan Klein, presented by Tiger Strikes Asteroid Greenville

Gyun Hur’s site-specific installation Enunciation of bless-ed-ness is a second iteration of her installation So we can be near, constructing landscape composed from her memories of loss and beauty. Hur has placed a large vinyl print comprising photos of the rivers of Charleston, Spanish moss over the Southern trees nearby the site, and floras. She covered it with thousands of hand-shredded fuchsia and yellow silk flowers that obscure parts of the print.

Glass sculptures in teardrop shapes installed on the gallery wall hold water collected from the Stono, Ashley, Cooper, and Wando Rivers in Charleston. Hand-collected by the community members in Charleston, the presence of this river water provides a spiritual anchor for Hur.

On the other side of the gallery wall, the artist has included an excerpt of her recent text written during her residency in Tennessee. Remembering her memories of growing up in the South, Hur integrates poetry with the biblical reference of Cana's Wedding and its mystical miracle as an opening. 

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“Maintenance of Way” Exhibition Statement

Tiger Strikes Asteroid Greenville is pleased to present MAINTENANCE OF WAY, an exhibition that brings together the work of Hannah Barnes and Gyun Hur. This show centers on the convergence of memory, history, site, and intimacy. Barnes and Hur create work that considers place as a mental and physical construct built by layers of time, a collection of striations. The exhibition takes its title from the phrase that means “the upkeep and repair of a railroad track”. Upkeep and repair, maintaining one’s way, is a process of labor and care. These artists position care at the forefront of their practices, holding the corporeal and the visceral to notice and remember. They explore the work it takes to notice, remember, and hold close the corporeal and the visceral. 

Barnes and Gyun explore the idea of maintenance in their practices as a physical and emotional pursuit, connected both to one’s private self and a broader public society. For Barnes, this manifests in a contemplative practice that exists as an antidote to reactionary modes of existence. Her practice is a model for a quiet maintenance of way, an argument for steady and intense labor and thoughtful reflection on the past and present. Hur seeks to forge also searches for the connection between vulnerability, labor, and memory as a form. Her iterations in installations and performances unravel temporary sites for remembrance seek remembrance through process. In a literal sense, hHer hand shredded cut silk flower pieces portray the  alludes the invisible labor of dwelling in maintaining nostalgic melancholia as endless attempts to remember what has been lost.  a memory while serving as a meditation on the passage of time. 

MAINTENANCE OF WAY is an exhibition that elucidates the tether between palpable touch and conceptual thought. Through the ritualistic act of making, Barnes and Gur cut and mend, cover and reveal, allowing for the layering of content and meaning. These artists have a spirit of generosity in their work, holding space for the marginal and unnamable. Their work invites the viewer to share in the collective experience of being private selves in public spaces. 

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