SeMA, Buk-Seoul Museum of Art presents Point・Line・Plane, an exhibition for children on the subject of the basic elements of the plastic arts: the point, the line, and the plane. Buk-Seoul Museum of Art’s Children’s Gallery organizes exhibitions that combine viewing and experiences in order to familiarize children and families to contemporary art, making it more accessible.
The point (which is the beginning of a shape), a line (which has a direction), and a plane (which creates area and space) are the basic elements of art. These elements are needed in order for humans to perceive objects and spaces around them and to express feelings and thoughts in a formal language. Understanding the point, line, and plane is an important step in the pedagogy of children and their aesthetic experience. Based on this understanding Point・Line・Plane invites the artist Hong Seung-Hye, who has long carried out experiments —both in content and form— with spaces constructed by the pixel — the smallest unit of the digital image. Hong’s Organic Geometry series, which imbues natural qualities such as irregularity and contingency to the cold geometric elements of point, line, and plane, began as abstract images on computer screens and has expanded to different forms such as real objects (like furniture), videos, and music. Based on the artist’s own practice, this exhibition aims to provide children a new experience of point, line, and plane.
Consisting of new works that reflect various qualities of point, line, and plane, the exhibition is divided into two categories. First, there is a pedagogical mural and videos that show the process in which points expand to lines and planes. Partitioning the space anew, painted square frames that are placed in different areas in the exhibition space look like independent planes separated from the existing architecture. Additionally, the creation and variation of point, line, and plane are demonstrated through a work of wall stickers that depict constellations, circles, and squares. Also, a flash animation that shows moving geometric figures that looks like dancing through sound created by the artist.
In another vein, there are installations that construct daily objects from geometric figures. Objects that are easily recognizable by anyone such as a jungle gym, stools, tables, and pushmobiles, encourage the audience’s bodily engagement while imparting familiarity and abstraction. In the process of touching and moving objects that are reduced to geometric shapes yet still closely related to our lives, viewers might be able to think again about familiar and seemingly natural forms and spaces.
This exhibition is organized to help children easily learn the concept of point, line, and plane. Moreover, beyond a simple visual appreciation of artworks it allows the audience to play and communicate with each other. Through this process we expect the audience to experience the infinite possibilities of point, line, and plane, and see anew the objects and spaces found in the everyday environment.
