Work  작업    /    About  소개  
Ail Hwang  황아일                                                                                                                                
                                                   

Meta Reflection
2025, mirror film, dichroic film, acrylic panel, prisms, various dimensions

This work incorporates the physical conditions of the exhibition space as integral elements of the artwork, transforming architectural features into reflective elements that respond to light and color. Depending on the time and environment, natural light is reflected or transmitted through the film, creating varied qualities of light within the space, while moments of its absence also become part of the experience. As light appears and disappears, the space is perceived not as a fixed object but as a shifting field; the fleeting light and shadows alter the viewer’s sensory experience, prompting reflection on what they reflect.




Superposition
2025, mixed media, HD video (color, sound, 18 min), variable installation

(…) The exhibition space often revealed unfamiliar structures. These ranged from minor details such as peeling paint and odd crevices to gaps that had existed since the space was first designed. Once noticed, they became scars on the smooth surface of the space. Although the white cube conceals the building’s original color for the sake of the artwork, those gaps have always existed. And what of the city that faces the building’s exterior? The city is constantly striving to conceal or displace those old tapestries. Redevelopment has become an essential stage in urban development, and the boundaries of time are now increasingly difficult to discern anywhere. The loosely intertwined curtains reveal their gaps without being drawn aside. Those small openings bring a certain place or time into this very spot. What ceaselessly surges through the walls are traces of past exhibitions, buildings, and cities. This is a story about confronting the fragility that allows a tapestry to function as a wall, summon something across the gaps, and continue to be layered onto the present.— Kim Malgeum, from the preface ‘What Does the Curtain Face?’
This exhibition is in constant flux, sharing with the audience the entire process of the work, from installation and exhibition to dismantling. 




̶R̶e̶s̶t̶o̶r̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n
2025, mixed media, variable installation



Reconstruction Vll
2023, photograph on film, transparent color window film, 
variable installation

The ‘Reconstruction’ series of window installations, which has been ongoing since 2015, sheds new light on everyday spaces and places. Composed of fluid materials, these spaces reveal the multi-layered meanings latent within our fixed routines through the interplay of light and shadow, color and complementary color, and the shifting densities and diffusions they create, introducing subtle fissures into our entrenched perceptions.
This work constructs new scenes by superimposing actual outdoor views with printed photographic images; these scenes are in constant flux, shifting with changes in light, weather, and the viewer’s position. The interplay of complementary colors also leaves a continuous afterimage in the viewer’s gaze, prompting us to reconsider what we think we are seeing. Familiar urban motifs—such as apartment blocks, plants, utility poles and streets—are transformed into a perceptual scene through superimposition, repetition and light passing through magenta film.




Wall
2023, latex paint, variable installation



Fractus Fractal
2023, mixed media, variable installation



Sculpture of Doubt
2022, transparent colored acrylic panels, 
each within 30 × 30 × 30 cm, variable installation

These small structures, constructed by combining leftover acrylic panels, are formed through chance combinations that respond to the shapes of the scraps and the characteristics of the space. Appearing as a single sculptural piece, ‘Sculpture of Doubt’ is built upon essential configurations required to precariously maintain balance rather than formalistic visual concerns. It is a variable sculpture that, should it collapse, is rebuilt by the audience. 



Black Forest
2022 / 2021, mixed media, variable installation



Mulberry
2022, latex paint, variable installation



In-Differenz
2018, latex paint, variable installation



Room of Sanctus

2018, homage to Barbara Hammer, Sanctus (1990), 
music by Neil B. Rolnick, HD video, color, sound, 18 min,  
video link: https://youtu.be/2m5h3B2GKUo


This video was filmed during a screening of Barbara Hammer’s Sanctus at the exhibition  ‘Generation LOSS: 10 Years (Julia Stoschek Collection).’  When the sound from another work was accidentally cut off, the viewers’ attention naturally shifted to the aisle where Sanctus was being projected. Rather than focusing on the narrative of Hammer’s film, this video attends to the colored reflections produced by the projection and the light it casts across the space. Through the shifting rhythms of sound and light, the film’s imagery unfolds within the viewers’ imaginations, while the space’s simple architectural structure is continuously transformed by the projection’s changing illumination.




Reconstruction I
2016, transparent color film, variable installation

This work occupies a narrow, ten-meter-long passage between a wall and windows inside the museum. Within this seemingly residual passage, transparent magenta film was applied to three windows and then partially removed.
The work does not foreground the artist’s hand or rely on extensive material intervention. Instead, it activates conditions already present in the space. These include the windows, the narrow passage, the blank wall, and the light entering from the hall beyond.
Through this subtle gesture, immaterial phenomena reconfigure the residual space. Light and shadow, color and its complement, and variations in density and diffusion continuously transform the passage. In this way, the work reveals how minimal intervention can give rise to a new spatial experience.




Abwesen
2012, acrylic panel (200 × 150 cm), slide projector, 
80 perforated slides, acrylic paint, wall drawing, 
variable installation

This work consists of 80 slides projected onto the floor plan of the Barcelona Pavilion and transparent acrylic panels.  The acrylic panels evoke the shapes of the slides while contrasting with the surrounding space.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who designed the Barcelona Pavilion, valued discipline, order, clarity, and truth. In his pursuit of the essence of architecture, he rejected chance and arbitrariness.  In this work, the slides are cut into irregular shapes before being projected onto the floor plan. Their irregular forms introduce elements of chance into the ordered structure of the plan.  The cut-out areas appear as light that drifts through the space.
Through this encounter, order confronts disorder, meaning confronts meaninglessness, and the essential confronts the accidental. At the same time, the work raises questions about the mutability and identity of a homogeneous space.



Reveal
2012, wood, paint, metal profile, 400 × 350 × 15 cm, 
 collaboration with Timo Panzer 

The internal framework that once supported the wall has been removed and now leans against another wall. The wall, its interior exposed, stands precariously. As viewers lean against the unstable wall, their trust in architecture and the systems that support it begins to waver. Through this arrangement, the wall and framework reveal new meanings and roles beyond their original functions.


House Number 42
2011, plaster wall, light bulb, 82 × 17 × 31 m, 
collaboration with Timo Panzer, Wewerka Pavillon

The Wewerka Pavilion is an experimental architectural structure designed by German architect Stefan Wewerka for documenta 8 in Kassel. It was later relocated next to Lake Aasee in Münster, where it now serves as an independent exhibition space.
For this installation, the artist arranged plaster walls resembling those of a typical home as sculptural elements inside the pavilion’s glass structure.  The pavilion’s roof appears to float in midair. By introducing domestic elements into this setting, the installation subverts the existing spatial context and invites new visual and conceptual interpretations.
Through this installation, the artist explores spatial circulation, the boundaries between private and public domains, and how the structure changes in response to light. The work also examines how the presence of a massive structure can make a space feel even more ‘empty.’
The plaster walls become sculptural objects within the installation. At the same time, they suggest a possible backdrop of an exhibition display or evoke a domestic space connected to the surrounding affluent residential neighborhood.
This multifaceted structure offers viewers multiple possibilities for interpretation. The work therefore goes beyond a simple sculpture and becomes a spatial proposal that encourages different perspectives and discussions.



Revolving door
2011, doors, 210 x 200 cm 



Sculpture of In-Differenz
2011, found objects, 210 x 200 cm, variable installation

This sculpture was created from objects found in the building of a defunct department store. A carpet with one corner cut off, a pedestal that fits into the missing corner, and a glass panel that fits the pedestal came together by chance to form a single work. The artist’s role was limited to finding elements that matched the dimensions of the existing objects and assembling them.



Alles kalter Kaffee
2011 / 2013, 80 postcards, slide projection, variable installation, 
collaboration with Timo Panzer

Elements in the exhibition space that would normally be removed or concealed before the opening—such as nail holes, tape stuck to the walls, and graffiti scrawled in out-of-the-way corners—were documented through photography. The photographs were made into postcards and distributed to visitors or presented as a slide show. The title of the work,  ‘Everything Is Cold Coffee’,  was taken from graffiti found in the space. The phrase comes from the German idiom ‘alles kalter Kaffee.’  It refers to something that is no longer new or no longer holds significance or interest in the present.
By bringing back traces considered unnecessary in the exhibition space, the work makes visible the time, labor, and memories accumulated there. At the same time, this act disrupts the norms of a controlled and polished exhibition space. It reveals the white cube as a space shaped by countless acts of erasure and revision.



Ridge Walk

2011, latex paint, 1880 × 465 cm, 
collaboration with Timo Panzer 



Moon Crane
2010, polycarbonate, light bulb, electrical cable, 
metal rod, ⌀ 2 m, port of Recklinghausen, Germany

In 2010, Essen was designated the European Capital of Culture on behalf of the Ruhr region, leading to a wide-ranging programme of urban and cultural regeneration. Once Germany’s largest centre of heavy industry, the region played a key role in supporting West Germany’s post-war economic miracle but later fell into decline. A full-moon-shaped light suspended from a disused crane appears together with the real moon and its reflection on the water. Together, these elements invite reflection on the region’s transformation and changing identity.



Lighthouse
2010 2022, transparent colored acrylic panels 
attached to a power transmission tower 
(up to 10 m), 24 × 24 × 46 m, Essen, Germany, 
collaboration with Hae-Ryun Jung and Jeong-Ki Park


The Black Rectangle
2010, net art, published on www.opunkttpunkt.net

This net artwork uses the internet as both a medium and a workspace. Users feel their way through a black screen as if navigating a dark room. They search for areas where the cursor changes into a pointing hand and click on them. With each click, a hidden source of light is switched on: a desk lamp, a television, a streetlight outside the window, or a bedside lamp. As these lights appear one by one, the outline of the room gradually emerges. When the central ceiling light is switched on, the entire screen turns white.
The work explores the boundaries between abstraction and representation, as well as between cyberspace and physical space. At the same time, it reconfigures users’ perceptions and behaviour through unfamiliar forms of interaction that depart from conventional ways of navigating the web.



Spatial Drawings & Drawings
2013