THEO will hold the group exhibition Flowers from May 26 to June 30, 2023. In this exhibition, held in conjunction with The Preview Seongsu, a variety of stories are developed through the interpretation of each participating artist in two poems/spaces of different nature with the same theme.

If a certain melody comes to mind while reading the phrase "flowers in a flower garden" used in the exhibition title, you may be able to connect it to the subtitle of the above-mentioned text, and you may even be able to think of the song of the melody that came to mind, that is, what the title of the song is. (The phrase and lyrics used in the title and the subtitle of this article are the beginning of a nursery rhyme called "Our Kindergarten[1]" which is usually prefaced with "○○ Kindergarten" to encourage a sense of belonging among the children attending the kindergarten.

The exhibition has a very simple concept: the works displayed in the exhibition space. This obvious fact is both kind and unkind, but if we put aside this ambivalence and look closely at the exhibition and the works in relation to the aforementioned, various stories behind the form emerge.

More than any particular occasion, the word, and symbol of 'flower' expressed in the seasonal feeling of 'spring', the melody and lyrics that came to mind, some music that was released at the right time, and the surrounding environment that changes in line with this temporality, provide an opportunity to be conscious of spatiality and to reflect on the things that belong to it and the things that make it up.

The booth of 'The Preview Seongsu 2023' art fair, which has already been attempted with the same planning intention, is a narrative about 'flowers' that contains various symbols in language and images, but also a narrative about the physical space represented by 'flower fields and flowers' and the elements that constitute/from them. The gallery and the curator interpret the 'flower garden', which functions as the physical space to which the flowers belong, as the coziest place for the flowers, but the fate that they must eventually leave (wither and disappear or be defeated by their purpose), and based on this, they assume the physical 'exhibition space' as a flower garden and the 'artworks' that compose and form the exhibition space as flowers." Although the gallery and the curator introduced the intention of this project rather kindly, we could confirm that the characteristics of the art fair are limited to consumption and tend to disappear (in various senses).

So what about the subsequent time/space of the 'exhibition' where the purpose is relatively blurred?

Next to the artworks are messages from each of the participating artists inspired by the 'flower language' motif, and the formal text on the cards raises new questions and stories that are symbolic or evocative as they are written.

Like Flowers in a Flower garden, the works are merely located in the exhibition space. The works in the different time/space exist in their own right, but I hope you can savor the associations of "form, belonging, relationship, element, and story" with the people/things that confront them.

Press release courtesy THEO.