DAHOON NAM: THE REAL REAL
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ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
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dahoon nam: the real real
31 october – 12 december, 2026
SOLO EXHIBITION OF
dahoon nam
PRESS RELEASE →
BB&M is pleased to present The Real Real, a solo exhibition of Dahoon Nam. In his first presentation with the gallery, Nam employs “imperfect replication” as a critical strategy to interrogate the authority of canonical modern and contemporary art and the value systems that uphold it. Nam reimagines iconic works by figures such as Alexander Calder, Damien Hirst, and Alberto Giacometti using everyday materials, creating a tension between meticulous simulation and deliberate deviation. While his familiar forms evoke their canonical counterparts, they simultaneously collide with the humble materiality of their construction from mass-produced and recycled objects.
In Governance and Subservience, Nam meticulously reproduces Damien Hirst‘s butterfly compositions, replicating the arrangement, colors, and wing count while replacing the biological specimens with Pokémon cards. This material substitution is made all the more striking by the preservation of the original‘s formal structure. Alluding to Pokémon creator Satoshi Tajiri’s childhood hobby of collecting insects, Nam draws a parallel between the gathering of living specimens and the accumulation of commodities. The holographic shimmer of the cards‘ surface—designed to signify rarity and fuel consumer desire—mimics the iridescence of butterfly wings while invoking the logic of scarcity governing both the valuation of trading cards and the reception of contemporary art in the market.
Similarly, Nam’s recreations of Calder’s mobiles (Cascading Flowers, Fish) and Giacometti’s sculpture (The Chariot) maintain formal fidelity while swapping traditional materials for discarded car parts. These components, stripped of their mechanical function but still bearing the marks of industrial production, serve as incisive commentary on the cycle of consumption. This juxtaposition of familiar compositions with incongruous materials is deployed in other works made of cardboard shipping boxes and aluminum cans, extending his critique to the boundary between the aesthetic and the mundane.
The exhibition title The Real Real is a nod to the luxury resale platform where authenticated “realness” serves as the primary basis for value. Here, the doubling of the word “real” unsettles the binary of authentic versus fake, and gives rise to a recursive question: what determines and sustains the “authenticity” of an object? In Nam’s practice, replication is a means by which the construction, validation, and preservation of artistic value are revealed to be contingent. In an age when images are infinitely reproducible, The Real Real explores how our sense of the “real” is shaped by the shifting dynamics between institutions, capital, and the market.
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