Hovering Duration by Yoonjae Lee at Caption Seoul challenges the notion of a singular visual experience, transforming the act of seeing into a diverse and dynamic interaction between viewer, artwork, and space.
Lee’s work interrogates the assumptions underpinning visual perception, grounding her research in the diverse conditions of the human eye. Her focus on the cornea—a delicate yet crucial part of our visual apparatus—emphasizes the individuality of optical experience, suggesting that the act of seeing is as varied as the individuals who engage in it.
This project marks a significant expansion of Lee's ongoing investigation into how art interacts with the physiological realities of its audience. By challenging the conventional understanding of vision as a uniform experience, Lee opens up a broader dialogue on the nature of art itself. Hovering Duration does not merely present visual stimuli but questions the very essence of how we define and engage with visual art. The exhibition space becomes a site of inquiry, where the viewer's gaze is not just a passive act but a dynamic component in the creation of meaning.
There is a palpable sense of helplessness in Lee's work, a reflection of her struggle with the conventional expectations placed on visual art to produce tangible, physical objects. This existential questioning is translated into the exhibition as an active, spatial phenomenon, where the boundaries between the artwork, the viewer, and the concept of the exhibition itself begin to blur. Lee’s approach reframes these "obvious and meaningless" questions as fundamental to understanding the medium of visual art, urging us to reconsider what it means to see, to create, and to experience art in a world of diverse perceptions.
