After the Applause, 2025



Exhibition The Last Carnival at PS Center, Seoul
Applause Was the First Wound, 2025, Stainless steel, 3D-printed resin, metal chains, mixed media, 180x85x51.5cm
After Applause, the Cracks Became the Stage, 2025, digital print on adhesive vinyl sheet, 342x133cm
Stan. Slam. Amen., 2025, Stainless steel, blown glass, carved pinewood, white gold-plated brass, gemstone beads, mixed media, 100x30x103cm
Creamed and Claimed, 2025, Japanese pink clay with glaze, 3D-printed resin, 37x26x16cm
After the Encore, Nothing but Butts, 2025, White clay with glaze, Dimensions variable
Don’t Break Me—Just Turn, 2025, White clay with glaze, metal chain, laser-cut stainless steel, mixed media, Dimensions variable
Bless This Mic (feat. Howl of the Crowd), 2025, Stereo, 01'14", Sound by Donghoon Gang
The Wailing Wall Where the Feedback Hit Deep, 2025, Lenticular print, laser-cut stainless steel, Dimensions variable
The Wailing Wall Where the Drip Was Divine, 2025, Heat-resistant glass, Dimensions variable
Soft Where the Stem Snapped, 2025, Stainless steel, 3D-printed resin, metal chains, mixed media, 30x35x60cm
Dead Shoes Stand at the Edge of What Comes Next, 2025, White clay with glaze, accessory elements, Y 9x15x10cm, B 10x15x11cm

Metal fabrication: Noh Yongwon
Glass fabrication: Park Hyung-Jin, Kim Yeonjin
3D modeling: Oh Young Hoon
Sound: Donghoon Gang
Installation: Jo Jaehong
Support: Serin Oh, Nayoung Kang, Jiji Kim, Jaewon Kim, Park Eunseo, Soojin Choi, Momin Choi, Seungbeom Son, Chulho Yeom

Photo by CJYARTSTUDIO & Jiji Kim
Courtesy of PS Center, Seoul





After the Applause (2025) begins with a paradox—of the one who reigns under the spotlight yet is the first to be sacrificed. This figure, exalted and consumed, desired and destroyed, stands at the intersection of worship and violence. From ancient saints to modern idols, from Jesus to pop stars, the body on the altar has always been a precarious symbol caught between sanctity and collapse.

The installation comprises broken and bent stand microphones—kneeling, bound to the stage as if alive, tangled in cables. These mics, no longer tools of speech, now serve as monuments of enforced silence and public shame. In front of the stage, fans’ discarded light sticks—once instruments of adoration—now rest like relics of a sacred riot. Their fanaticism, almost religious in nature, is as beautiful as it is aggressive. These remnants visualize the emptiness after ecstasy, the neglect after worship, the ruin that follows desire.

As viewers move beyond the debris and into the dim fencing of the concert zone, the space transforms—from a stage into a hellscape, then into an altar, and finally into a wailing wall. The sound piece, Bless This Mic (feat. Howl of the Crowd) (2025), blends cheers, screams, and sobs to capture the moment when euphoria turns to torment and punishment.

My idol persona appears in illustrated form, rendered in the visual style of erotic gay manga circulated on Twitter—wide-eyed, soft, and broken. He cries both onstage and off, wearing a microphone as a gag or waiting, submissively, for one to be inserted into his anus. This strategy of moe-fication intensifies the aesthetics of shame and sacrifice, exposing the paradoxical structure of pop culture, where sacred martyrdom and sexual consumption are equally desired.

After the Applause (2025) traverses religion, pop culture, queerness, politics, BDSM, and the subversion of power. It reveals how those placed on pedestals are endlessly offered up—praised one moment, destroyed the next.