[비즈한국] Baek Jong-hwan, who has led the spatial design studio WGNB for the past decade, is holding his first solo exhibition, ‘The Lightness of Things.’ Having built the identities of brands and spaces through spatial design, Baek chooses to step away from his usual practice of designing spaces, instead bringing to the fore objects, materials, surfaces, and the subtle tension and negative space situated between them.
Baek Jong-hwan graduated from Kookmin University with a degree in Spatial Design and went on to earn a master's degree in Interior Design from the same university. Since founding WGNB in 2015, he has led various commercial projects including fashion, retail, and cultural spaces, consistently working to translate the tangible and intangible values of brands into the language of space. He has particularly gained recognition in the industry for breaking away from conventional design habits and redefining perspectives on his subjects.
The exhibition title, ‘The Lightness of Things,’ carries a dual meaning. In Korean, the word 'Nongdam' (농담) can refer to the density or shade of color, reflecting the depth of shadows created by the density and light of objects. At the same time, it is a homonym for ‘joke’ (弄談), highlighting the wit and flexible perspective the artist intended when arranging and composing these objects. The English title, ‘Lightness,’ further defines the exhibition's character by simultaneously referring to the brightness of objects and their physical weightlessness.
The exhibited works focus on subtle misalignments rather than perfect symmetry, or on the negative space placed between orderly arrangements. The artist has stripped away complex modifiers that describe objects, allowing visual elements such as the temperature of materials, the angle of shadows, and the posture of objects to convey messages directly to the viewer. This process reveals the vivid expressions of minute objects that were previously overlooked when designing entire spaces.
This exhibition, marking the 10th anniversary of WGNB, serves as an opportunity for Baek to consolidate his approach as a designer and explore future design directions. It contains practical reflection, returning to the stage before creating large-scale spatial outputs to explore the fundamental materials that compose objects and the relationships between them.
Baek Jong-hwan's first solo exhibition, ‘The Lightness of Things,’ will be held from December 18 to January 17, 2026, across ‘Gallery Woong’ and ‘Project W299’ at 299 Jahamun-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul. Visitors can experience firsthand the designer's specific perspective on handling objects and materials, expanding the boundaries between architecture and spatial design.