Han Seungmin’s Bu Tables Recontextualize Ornament and Craft Traditions
Where washers, brackets and hinges become motifs of design.
Summary
- Han Seungmin aka Sonny Han’s Bu Tables reinterpret Korean furniture with industrial hardware as ornament
- Brackets, washers and hinges become decorative motifs, highlighting cost and craft
- Exhibited at One of One gallery, staged beneath a carved wooden fish referencing the Jaringobi folktale
The Bu Tables, created by Brooklyn-based furniture and object artist Han Seungmin (also known as Sonny Han), are a two-part furniture series that reimagines the sensibilities, proportions and decorative logic of traditional Korean furniture.
Bu, the title of the project, embraces a layered linguistic duality in Korean, utilizing a phonetic sound that can translate to either “wealth” or “division or parts”. Displayed as a stacked arrangement, the tables are exhibited beneath a hand-carved wooden fish hanging from the ceiling joists. This staging directly references the Korean folktale of Jaringobi — an extreme miser who hung a dried fish above his table to merely look at rather than eat, making it last longer.
Through repetition and dense placement, these utilitarian parts become decorative motifs: brackets form borders, washers resemble floral patterns and hinges sit like jewelry across the surface. This deliberate recontextualization highlights the overlooked aesthetic qualities of standardized hardware, shifting them from functional anonymity to delicate embellishment. The project also underscores the inseparability of material and cost — each bracket, washer and bolt arrives with a price tag, making the act of assembly a meditation on the economies of craft in a commercialized present.
Presented by One of One gallery at its satellite space on 35 Allen Street, the Bu Tables are displayed stacked beneath a hand‑carved wooden fish, referencing the Korean folktale of Jaringobi, a miser who preserved a dried fish by only looking at it during meals. This juxtaposition of industrial parts and folk symbolism raises questions about value, consumption, and restraint in craft.
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