BERLIN.- UNBOXING PROJECT presents MESSAGE, a group exhibition featuring newly commissioned pieces by twenty-two prominent Korean contemporary artists. Curated by Hyunjoo Byeon and Minjin Chae, the exhibition will be on view from 20 March to 12 April 2025 at the historic KÖNIG TELEGRAPHENAMT in Berlin, a former hub of telecommunication.
Since its inception in 2022, the UBP has invited audiences to discover the unique potential of small-sized artworks. In contrast to grand and spectacular artworks that often evoke admiration from afar, these intimate works foster a profound connection, inspiring empathy, reflection, and enduring impact. For each edition, the participating artists are challenged to encapsulate the essence of their practice in compact yet conceptually expansive frameworks, specifically tailored to the project’s themes.
In this fifth edition, MESSAGE, the UBP takes inspiration from its extensive history of the Telegraphenamt. Established in 1916, the Telegraphenamt was once a key site for advanced telecommunication technologies, including the Rohrpost pneumatic mail system, which at its peak spanned nearly 400 km across Berlin. Though now obsolete, this network once revolutionized information delivery throughout the city. Resonating with this legacy, the exhibition interrogates the evolution of communication and connection through newly created artworks showcased in a framework inspired by historic pneumatic mail cases.
The participating artists have each created work on a 65 × 43.5 cm canvas mounted on a hanging scroll and enclosed in a cylindrical case, bridging both the pneumatic tube system and the traditional scroll format used in East Asian painting and calligraphy. These scrolls, which historically served as vessels for both artistic expression and textual communication, have functioned as media for circulating images and ideas across time and geography. Through this framework, artists consider how their works operate within these histories of transmission, exploring the ways messages in art are conveyed, interpreted, and reinterpreted across different contexts.
Bringing together a diverse group of artists, from established figures to emerging voices, MESSAGE explores how meaning is shaped by the structures that frame it. The resulting works examine the interplay of language, imagery, and material within systems of transmission, considering the fragility, distortion, and reinterpretation that occur in the process of communication. Working within the scale and form of the scroll, the artists navigate the tension between imposed constraints and conceptual possibilities, expanding the dialogue on how artworks exist in relation to time, space, and technological evolution.
MESSAGE invites Berlin audiences to engage with these inquiries, reconsidering the ways art and language move across different space-time and contexts. Through its focused scale and distinct curatorial framework, the exhibition manifests the role of small-scale works in shaping new modes of representation and interpretation.
Participating artists: Jisan Ahn, Kyuchul Ahn, Yoonhee Choi, Kyungah Ham, Jongwan Jang, JungJin, Jiyoung Keem, Suyoung Kim, Eunsil Lee, Leehaiminsun, Maia Ruth Lee, Seulgi Lee, Nosik Lim, Sungsic Moon, Joung-ki Min, Grim Park, Gwangsoo Park, Jina Park, Rim Park, Yaerim Ryu, Neung Kyung Sung, Yun-hee Toh
