LIBERTINE presents “Taewon Heo: Kill the Secret Cops.”  An opening  reception will be held on June 12, 2021 at 6:00pm. 

Video still, Paintings from Hong Kong, single channel video, 8′ 00” 2021

Taewon Heo has been capturing “found-painting” images from various cities since 2005. The paintings are the result of covering over graffiti in public areas. His new exhibition at LIBERTINE focuses on the aftermath of the 2020 Hong Kong protests. At its core, Heo’s art questions the nature of authority and its psychoanalytic implications.

Who are the secret cops? In these times they are everywhere. Or nowhere. Everyone is concerned to do away with “the man” – the authority – the cop. But like a mutation, the cop has multiplied and gone into hiding in each and every one. In the name of righteousness each one is desperate to show his virtue – yet this is nothing other than an adherence to a more insidious cop – the superego of group allegiance and normativity. No longer is there a patriarch to point to or a clear rule of law. There is but a covert and unspoken norm of village mentality that one must guess at to agree to or be excluded. As humans we have degenerated from the level of “civil rights” to deviate from the norm as “one” of absolute difference, to the point of majority rules as a form of minority rules. Identity. Belonging. The Ego mirrors the Superego of the group.

On view: June 12 – July 9, 2021

Where: LIBERTINE, 6817 Melrose Ave, Hollywood, 90038
Phone: 213-454-0995
Website: https://libertine.org