Feb 27, 2026

Sungho Bae: Soft Bodies Against Coherence

Through gathering and reorganizing circulated materials, Sungho Bae unsettles systems of classification and stability. In doing so, the body emerges not as a fixed whole but as a constructed condition.

Sungho Bae with Soft Bodies Against Coherence - Artist in Focus - Image Anatomy of Unnamed, Yet Loved 2025 Mixed media; anatomical model made from hundreds of repurposed Frankenstein monster toys, plush toy product tags, pins marking plush toy sources 90.6 × 35.4 × 35.4 in / 230 × 90 × 90 cm - Image Courtesy of the Artist

Fragmentation and Reconfiguration

Based in Seoul and Chicago, Sungho Bae reconfigures mass-produced forms and circulated materials, bringing dissonant states into contact. In his series featuring plush toys modeled after Frankenstein’s monster, Bae dismantles a form already defined by internal contradiction.

Sungho Bae. sculpture work, anatomy human, fabric, textile, catapult munchies art club artist in fokus — **Sungho Bae:** Anatomy of Unnamed, Yet Loved 2025 Mixed media; anatomical model made from hundreds of repurposed Frankenstein monster toys, plush toy product tags, pins marking plush toy sources 90.6 × 35.4 × 35.4 in / 230 × 90 × 90 cm Image Courtesy and provided by the artist

**Sungho Bae:** Anatomy of Unnamed, Yet Loved 2025 Mixed media; anatomical model made from hundreds of repurposed Frankenstein monster toys, plush toy product tags, pins marking plush toy sources 90.6 × 35.4 × 35.4 in / 230 × 90 × 90 cm - Image Courtesy of the Artist

Once a pariah, the monster now circulates as acommercial product, adopting fabricated cuteness to secure attachment while retaining the markers of its monstrosity.

By rearranging the monster’s body into unfamiliar ecosystems or human silhouettes, Bae reverses the original narrative, constructing a human figure from the monster’s dismembered parts.

This anatomical reconstruction embodies the historical violence inherent in the assembling and classification of marginalized bodies.

**Sungho Bae:** ZCD-23 - Contagious Structure Type 12023 Mixed media: reconstituted zombie plush toys, acrylic isolation chamber with integrated safety gloves 59 × 24 × 21 in / 149.9 × 61 × 53.3 cm

In the Zombie works, contagion shifts from narrative to spatial structure. Plush zombies are compressed within transparent chambers where fixed protective gloves invite a touch that is simultaneously withheld. Through repetition, these formations stage contact and quarantine as a single tense condition.

Other works draw from stuffed animals salvaged from waste-processing sites. Marked by disposal and recovered through disassembly, these fragments are bound with apotropaic elements and ritual implements. The process binds discarded matter into presences suspended between life and nonlife.

Sungho Bae on Instagram