Wonmin Park made his name with ethereal furniture pieces made from geometric slabs of resin, so his 2021 exhibition ‘Stone and Steel’, which explored more organic shapes, marked a significant shift in both material palette and form. The South Korean-born, Paris-based designer now comes full circle with his latest work, ‘Plain Cuts Remediated Low Table SS1901’, which reinterprets his volcanic rock and hand-cut steel designs in coloured resin and frosted glass and is on view at Paris’ Carpenters Workshop Gallery (20 October 2022 – 7 January 2023).
Whereas Park’s ‘Stone and Steel’ tables featured bases of volcanic rock from Japan, with surfaces alternating between dark grey and a rusted ochre, the new table has a coloured resin base, created by his longtime manufacturing partners in Rotterdam. Its rocky form was not cast from a mould, but rather painstakingly sculpted by hand. The choice of glass instead of steel for the tabletop – shaped like a horizontal cross section of the base – reinforces the impression of lightness.
At the heart of Park’s transfiguration are two principles: a continued emphasis on natural beauty (thus the avoidance of straight lines), and the interplay between positive and negative space. ‘The existence of nature has reached a new stage of abstraction amid technological development and co-evolution of nature, breaking the quantification of humans versus nature. I want to find a way to trace and explore that existence,’ he says. He also hopes that peering into the resin ‘rock’ will give the viewer a new appreciation for geological time.
The new design is the centrepiece of Park’s exhibition ‘On Earth’, which opens at Carpenters Workshop Gallery on Thursday, 20 October to coincide with the inaugural edition of Paris+. The show additionally includes Park’s work volcanic rock and steel pieces, as well as drawings and paintings that reveal a practice dedicated to the intersection of the natural and the man-made.
‘Wonmin Park: On Earth’, 20 October 2022-7 January 2023
carpentersworkshopgallery.com
wonminpark.com
ADDRESS
Carpenters Workshop Gallery
4 Rue de la Verrerie
Paris 4e
A version of this article headlines the November 2022 Art Special Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.
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