ARARIO GALLERY SEOUL is pleased to present Paradise, a solo exhibition by AHN Chang Hong (b. 1953), from November 4 (Wed) to December 26 (Sat), 2026. Throughout his artistic practice, AHN has explored resistance to the violence and barbarism concealed or justified in the name of civilization. His works draw attention to those who have been forgotten by society or forced into silence, exposing the systemic ills of modern capitalist society and the erosion of humanity. AHN’s first solo exhibition in the United States, noon-mool, which recently opened at the American University Museum in Washington, D.C., has attracted significant attention from international audiences, the media, and art professionals. Against this backdrop of growing international recognition, Paradise at ARARIO GALLERY SEOUL holds particular significance as a major solo exhibition in Korea, bringing together a comprehensive selection of AHN’s recent and representative works. The exhibition is further distinguished by its presentation of works employing techniques and forms that AHN is exploring for the first time, including cast-iron sculpture and paintings incorporating photographs created through the daguerreotype process.
For AHN, art is not merely a means of personal fulfillment but an activity that generates social value and calls for change. He emphasizes his sense of mission as an artist to uncover the wounds inflicted by historical tragedies and social injustices. AHN believes that an artist’s mission is to serve as a “social catalyst” by capturing and visualizing the uncomfortable truths hidden beneath the surface of contemporary society. The exhibition brings together 39 selected works from AHN’s recent practice, presented throughout ARARIO GALLERY SEOUL. The exhibition title, Paradise, ironically alludes to the violence and absurdities concealed beneath the order and tranquility of mainstream society. Upon entering the exhibition, visitors encounter the monumental cast-iron sculpture Blindness – War (2026), standing approximately three meters tall. The work is particularly significant as it marks AHN’s first use of cast iron as a sculptural medium. The exhibition also unveils a new series of paintings incorporating photographs created through the daguerreotype process, the earliest practical photographic process, which today is mastered by only a handful of specialists worldwide.
Throughout his artistic practice, AHN has developed a distinctive visual language through continuous experimentation with diverse media and techniques. This spirit of experimentation is also evident in the selection of works presented in the exhibition. Installed in the first-floor gallery, with its soaring ceiling, is Blindness – War (2026), a monumental cast-iron sculpture standing approximately three meters tall and weighing 1.1 tons. A shell, symbolizing the brutality of war, cuts diagonally across the face of an enormous head, mercilessly embedded in its surface. Amid the struggles for power and vested interests among those who wield immense authority, it is ultimately the lives of vulnerable individuals that are destroyed and trampled upon. Reimagined as a monumental, weighty cast-iron sculpture, the victim’s eyes gaze piercingly ahead, as though seeing through the reality before them with unsettling clarity.
AHN describes both the process of creating such monumental, weighty objects and the audience’s encounter with them as “a struggle between ‘materiality’ and ‘the sublime.’” The physically demanding labor involved in producing the sculpture becomes, for the artist, “a process of ascetic practice that tests the limits of his physical endurance.” It is also “a process through which the artist comes to embody the suffering of his subjects, while recognizing that he himself is but a fragile human being standing before an immense form.”
Blindness – War extends AHN’s ongoing series of large-scale sculptures, Blindness, while marking a significant departure through its use of cast iron as a medium. AHN states that he hopes “viewers will hear a ‘monumental, silent scream’ as they stand before The Blind Ones.” In the artist’s words, “When the enormous, unseeing face overwhelms the viewer, they will instead experience an ethical pang of conscience, becoming acutely aware of the cowardice of their own gaze.”
Paradise – Face (2026) and Paradise – Hand (2026) series are particularly significant as AHN’s first works to incorporate daguerreotype, widely recognized as the earliest practical photographic process, into his paintings. Daguerreotype is an early photographic technique developed and publicly introduced in 1839 by French inventor Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre. The process produces images on highly polished, mirror-like silver-plated surfaces, achieving exceptionally high resolution. It is distinguished by its extraordinarily fine detail and rich tonal gradations. Today, only a handful of specialists worldwide possess the expertise required to practice this historic photographic technique.
The exhibition presents two works from the Paradise – Face series and two from the Paradise – Hand series. These paintings were created by enlarging and printing original 6 × 8-inch daguerreotype photographs onto large canvases, which serve as the foundation for subsequent applications of acrylic paint and mediums. Even when images originally captured on silver plates only slightly larger than the palm of a hand are enlarged to a height of 255 centimeters, the daguerreotype process allows for minimal distortion or loss of image detail. In this respect, the analog daguerreotype process can yield results of superior image quality compared to contemporary digital photography.
The photographic images underlying the monumental paintings in the Paradise – Face series originate from relief works AHN created in the 1970s. The faces depicted in these paintings were originally modeled in terracotta and a pulp made from traditional Korean mulberry paper (sunji), then photographed using the daguerreotype process and enlarged. These anonymous faces symbolize the forgotten humanity of those who lost their lives without recognition amid the upheavals of Korea’s modern and contemporary history, including the Jeju April 3 Incident and the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement. Meanwhile, the Paradise – Hand series, comprising paintings measuring 162 × 128.5 cm each, foregrounds the forms of hand reliefs that AHN created using sunji pulp. Rather than faces, the artist chose hands as a motif symbolizing the historical tragedies of Korea’s military dictatorship era. Hands, like individual faces, possess a remarkable diversity of forms and gestures, each offering a condensed expression of a person’s lived experience. According to AHN, hands serve as a means through which humans connect with others and create things, yet they can also become instruments of violence when used to wield weapons. Through the imagery of hands, Paradise – Hand speaks to the collapse of humanity in the face of merciless violence and the suffering of vulnerable individuals who bear the indelible scars of a traumatic era.
Venue
ARARIO GALLERY SEOUL (85 Yulgok-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Korea) 1F, 3F, 4F
Artist
AHN Chang Hong
Exhibition Dates
4 November – 26 December 2026
Gallery Hours
Tuesday – Saturday | 11 AM – 6 PM
Website
https://www.arariogallery.com
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/arariogallery.official
Contact
info@arariogallery.com
About the Artist
Born in 1953 in Miryang, AHN has lived and worked in Yangpyeong, Korea, for the past 37 years. He has held solo exhibitions at major institutions and galleries in Korea and abroad, including ARARIO GALLERY (Seoul, Korea, 2026; 2019, Cheonan, Korea, 2015), American University Museum (Washington, D.C., US, 2026), Yeoju Art Museum (Yeoju, Korea, 2024), Savina Museum of Contemporary Art (Seoul, Korea, 2022; 2009; 2006; 2002), Casa Museo Guayasamín and La Capilla del Hombre (Quito, Ecuador, 2021), Gyeongnam Art Museum (Changwon, Korea, 2019), Chosun Ilbo Art Museum (Seoul, Korea, 2013), Alternative Space LOOP (Seoul, Korea, 2013), and Busan Museum of Art (Busan, Korea, 2009). His works have also been featured in group exhibitions at numerous institutions, including the Seoul Museum of Photography (Seoul, Korea, 2026), Suwon Museum of Art (Suwon, Korea, 2026), Jeju Museum of Art (Jeju, Korea, 2021), Busan Museum of Art (Busan, Korea, 2021; 2005; 1998), Sungkok Art Museum (Seoul, Korea, 2019; 2003; 1997), Seoul Museum of Art (Seoul, Korea, 2013; 2001), Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art (Ansan, Korea, 2013), Leeum Museum of Art (Seoul, Korea, 2011), National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (Gwacheon, Korea, 2006; 2004; 2001; 1997; 1994), Gwangju Museum of Art (Gwangju, Korea, 2008; 1998), and Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (Fukuoka, Japan, 2007). AHN has received numerous awards, including the 25th Lee Jung Seop Art Award (2013), the 10th LEEINSUNG Art Prize (2009), the 1st Buil Art Grand Prize (2001), the 10th Bongsaeng Cultural Award – Exhibition Category (2000), and the Special Jury Prize at the 21st Cagnes-sur-Mer International Painting Festival (1989). A notable publication on his work is Youth Shining in the Darkness: The Art of AHN Chang Hong (Seoul: Noonbit, 1997), a collection of critical essays by CHOI Tae Man. His works are held in major public and private collections, including the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea; Seoul Museum of Art; Busan Museum of Art; Fukuoka Asian Art Museum; Daegu Art Museum; Gyeongnam Art Museum; Jeju Museum of Art; Kumho Museum of Art; Savina Museum of Contemporary Art; Korea Exchange Bank Headquarters; and ARARIO Collection.
(Text and images courtesy of ARARIO GALLERY SEOUL)
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