Out of (Con)Text

Written by Sunmin Park, Sungah Serena Choo, Seewon Hyun, Hyun Jeung Kim, Yung Bin Kwak, Anca Verona Mihulet, Hye Jin Mun, Cheonkang Park
Edited by Youngju Lee
Designed by Dokho Shin

Out of (Con)Text presents a selection of Sunmin Park’s works realized in the last 25 years of her artistic practice. It also includes seven essays by art critics, curators, and architect including Yung Bin Kwak, Hye Jin Mun, Anca Verona Mihulet, and Cheonkang Park, which interpret the artist’s multi-layered practice using various media such as drawing, photo, video, and installation.

Representing the artist’s work in the format of publication, which is “connected like a single living being, and is thus nearly impossible to compartmentalize,” this book unfolds her practice organically instead of listing the artworks chronologically. Centered around the “Index,” which includes the artist’s almost entire works, Out of (Con)Text layers up the essays by seven authors analyzing her practice in different contexts; then the selected works’ images are arranged as if they enclose the texts as another layer. In addition, these images and the works depicted in the texts are all connected with the numbers indicated in the Index.

Through this structural form, Out of (Con)Text is the hitherto most representational introduction to Sunmin Park’s artistic trajectory, examining a new visual language while juxtaposing text and image, microscopic and macroscopic world, and civilization and nature. Also, this book signifies the artist’s pivotal moment that moves forward “from the expanding dot, through the drawn line,” to new work.