Shinoh Nam
A Guide to the Interior for a House on Ambiguous Grounds
1 MAY until 13 JUN 2026
Opening – 1 MAY 2026, 6-9 pm
For Gallery Weekend Berlin 2026, Mountains is pleased to announce the solo exhibition A Guide to the Interior for a House on Ambiguous Grounds by Shinoh Nam (*1993, Seoul).
Shinoh Nam
Concept drawing
2025
Hahnemühle paper 300g, oil pastel, acrylic paint, spray, transparent paper
20 × 30 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Mountains, Berlin
Shinoh Nam’s artistic practice unfolds between architecture, psychoanalysis, and cultural displacement. Having grown up in Korea, a society defined by development and competition, and later studying and living in Germany where preservation and coexistence are deeply embedded values, Nam constructs a body of work that reflects on the contradictions of progress and identity formation. His sculptures, installations, and two-dimensional works oscillate between construction and collapse, between the functional and the personal.
The exhibition A Guide to the Interior for a House on Ambiguous Grounds at Mountains presents Nam’s ongoing exploration of moral and spatial ambiguity: a world where nationalism seems to hide beneath the rhetoric of coexistence, and where the individual negotiates between self-interest and moral principle. Through hand-worked steel, burnt wood, glass, and industrial foam, Nam creates architectural fragments that appear both precise and precarious—embodying a state of permanent reconstruction.
The artist’s practice challenges architecture’s utopian promises and the social ideologies embedded within material form. Each sculpture is both fragment and proposition—a ruin of progress and a model of possibility.
Shinoh Nam
Peephole study (detail)
2026
Inkjet print on paper
Courtesy of the artist and Mountains, Berlin
Shinoh Nam
Untitled (detail)
2026
Ferrero Rocher cast in aluminium
Courtesy of the artist and Mountains
„Nam puts forth a philosophy of reconstruction which simultaneously romanticises and critiques the habit of constantly throwing up buildings … His artisanal treatment of industrial materials invokes a sense of impermanence at odds with the capitalistic desire for eternity.“
— Olamiju Fajemisin
Portrait Shinoh Nam.
Courtesy the artist
Shinoh Nam, born 1993 in Seoul, South Korea, lives and works in Berlin and Seoul. He received a Meisterschüler from Monica Bonvicini at the Universität der Künste in Berlin (2022) and previously studied Fine Art and Architecture at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf with Rita McBride, Lothar Hempel, Jürgen Drescher and Donatella Fioretti (2015-2021). Before moving to Germany, Nam has worked in Photography and Visual Media in Seoul, where he also obtained a qualification in psychological counseling.
Nam’s upcoming and recent exhibitions include N/A gallery, Seoul (2027); Caption Seoul, Seoul (2027); The Drawing Center, New York (2026); Ranee Seoul art space, Seoul (2026); The Third gallery, Seoul (2026); Mountains, Berlin (2026); Hyperborea (cur. Shelly Lea Reich), as part of HALLEN 06 at Wilhelmhallen Berlin during Berlin Art Week (2025); Clearing NY/LA in Basel during ART BASEL week (2025); NADAN, Berlin (2025); Wehrmuehle Biesenthal (2023); Anhaltischer Kunstverein / Kunsthalle Dessau (2022); Darmstädter Sezession, Darmstadt (2022); KARMA International, Zurich (2021); SOMA art space, Berlin (2021); Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin (2021).
Nam has been nominated for various prizes, including the Kunststiftung Kunze scholarship (2025); Ars Viva Preis (shortlist 2024, nominated 2025); Elsa Neumann Prize (shortlist 2023); UDK Berlin Art Award (winner, 2023); Darmstadt Prize for young artists (shortlist, 2022); Karl Hofer Stipendien (shortlist, 2022); and Federal Prize For Art Students (2022).
Shinoh Nam
I always wanted to write my own diary as well. And I think it’s always amply written. But, as ‚You‘ know, my diary is insusceptible and I can’t concentrate anymore (I),
2026
Plexiglass, hand polished steel, stainless steel, collaged diary · 32 × 27 × 7 cm
Photo: Julie Becquart.
Courtesy the artist and Mountains, Berlin
Shinoh Nam
I call my frustrating envy Admiration and struggle to console myself. Victory lies before me yet drifts away, amid endless and forgotten purposes, I still pray others’ lives serve my longing yet
2025
(perspective view)
1900s vintage Berlin door, 1930s Hermann Hesse’s Narziss und Goldmund, acrylic box, mirror-polished stainless steel, door viewer, stainless steel, steel, brass
219.2 × 35 × 35 cm
Courtesy of the artist
Works by Shinoh Nam are held in the Burger Collection, Hong Kong, and other collections in Europe and Asia.