The Garden of Forking Paths at Gana Art, Seoul, South Korea
Author: Michela Ceruti
I visited “The Garden of Forking Paths” in Seoul less than twelve hours after arriving in the city, which is to say: I walked into the exhibition having barely walked into the country. After a car ride, a train ride, two flights, and a series of experiences with several public transportation systems that may or may not have happened in the order I remember them, I arrived in a state of what could generously be called dreamlike– somewhere between hallucination and devotion. It felt, frankly, like the only corresponding condition under which to experience a show about fractured realities and infinite outcomes.
The exhibition, housed at Gana Art Center in Hannam-dong — a tranquil, upscale neighborhood in Seoul that offers a momentary escape from the city’s frenzy — takes its name from Jorge Luis Borges’ 1941 short story The Garden of Forking Paths. In it, Borges offers up the image of time not as a line, but as a labyrinth. His decision is bifurcation. Every path that could be taken is taken, somewhere, in some parallel fold of existence. We are always choosing, and all choices are true– truth is a system of multiplicities, not resolutions. Quantum theory (or at least the pop-scientific version of it I’m vaguely misquoting) seems to agree.
There are two entrances to the exhibition ––– a structural detail that becomes almost metaphorical: not only do we enter the space differently, we experience it differently. Every entry is a fork, every step a divergence.
Inside, four Korean artists offer their fractured lenses through which to view our already fractured world. Goo Gideon’s work explores nature as mediated through digital images– the kind of slippery, pixelated terrain that is more hallucinatory than seen. Her practice picks at the edges of the natural and artificial until the blur– or glitch occurs. Suh Dongwook renders loneliness as a condition of contemporary realism. His pieces feel lukewarm, quiet heartbreaks, or perhaps small attempts to fill the invaluable space between selves. There is a loss here, and an almost tender acceptance of its permanence. Song Sumin conjures the intersection between catastrophe and the everyday– those landscapes where a new cycle and your kitchen table sit awkwardly side by side. Her juxtaposition reminds us that the apocalypse often arrives unannounced, wearing the clothes of routine. Chung Soyoung’s work is about boundaries –manmade, remembered, forgotten– and the erosion of these lines over time. Her spatial investigations suggest that what we define, we eventually destroy, or perhaps simply misplace. Borders are stories we tell ourselves about where things end.
The Garden of Forking Paths is on view at Gana Art through August 24.
About the author: Michela Ceruti is a writer based in Milan. She is the managing editor of Flash Art Magazine.
Notes on the images:
(1) Suh Dongwook, TV가 나를 본다 III The TV Watches Me III, 2023, Oil on canvas, 80.3 × 116.8 cm 31.6 × 46 in.ⓒ Courtesy of the artist and Gana Art.
(2) Gijeong Goo, 그림자가 드리우지 않는 깊은 곳 A deep realm where no shadows draw, 2023. Single-channel video, stainless steel structure, polycarbonate, preserved moss, branches, artificial plants, 65" TV, 205 x 115 × 30 cm, 80.7 x 45.3 × 11.8 in. ⓒ Courtesy of the artist and Gana Art.
(3) Chung Soyoung, 이미륵의 거울 Mirrors for Mirok Yi, 2024. Silver nitrate, potassium hydroxide, glucose, ammonia solution, distilled water, tempered glass, stainless steel, 31 x 48 × 6 cm, 12.2 x 18.9 × 2.4 in. ⓒ Courtesy of the artist and Gana Art.
Suh Dongwook, 서울 두 사람 Seoul couple, 2025. Oil on canvas, 130.3 x 162.2 cm, 51.3 x 63.9 in. ⓒ Courtesy of the artist and Gana Art.