Dahoon Nam
Nam Dahoon (b.1995) is based in Seoul and Namyangju, whose work recreates and reinterprets everyday scenes through a wide range of media, including styrofoam sculptures of various scales and computer graphics. Through labor-intensive yet deliberately unrefined repetitive hand-crafted works, he questions the exchange value of labor and capital, and invites viewers to consider how the value of art is produced in the market.
Nam studied art history in Toronto, Canada. His major solo exhibitions include National Junkyard of Modern and Contemporary Art (Atelier Aki, Seoul, 2025), MoMA from TEMU (Space Hwangumhyang, Seoul, 2024), and The Adult Empire Strikes Back (Gallery Watermark, Seoul, 2024). He has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including For All: Chocolate, Lemonade, and Party (Suwon Museum of Art, Suwon, 2025) and Protect Me From What I Want (Seoul National University Museum of Art, Seoul, 2024). He also engages in projects that intersect with art and everyday life, working with institutions such as Amorepacific Foundation and Industrial Bank of Korea.
Currency Exchange Project
Colored pencil, acrylic, pencil on paper, variable installation, 2021–present
"Dahoon Nam meticulously handcrafts replicas of everyday objects. Though they may appear familiar at first glance, his versions are subtly awkward—slightly off in shape, function, or material. No longer serving their intended purpose, they are deliberate fakes. By relocating these now-useless objects into unfamiliar settings, Nam invites us to see the everyday with new eyes.
Currency Exchange Project goes beyond simply imitating the look of a currency exchange booth; it recreates the experience of ‘exchange’ itself. Visitors participate by offering real money in return for fake bills. The interaction mimics an ordinary financial transaction, but what is exchanged is ultimately meaningless: functionless signs.
Through this process, the artist questions the economic rituals we perform without hesitation in our everyday lives. Nam’s act of replication is not a mere reproduction, but a critical intervention—one that reconsiders the status of the “real” and explores the subversive potential of the “fake.”"
LOST & LUCKY, Talisman for Wealth Luck
