Jeremy Palluce, a Luxembourgish artist, returns to Korea—after a first project in 2023 in Busan with his friend, Korean artist Sijin Jung—for a residency at Studiya, an international art collective and artist-run space based in Seoul. He presents NO_HOOK_POST_JETLAG, an exhibition that extends his research and questions cultural, social, and popular codes.

“NO HOOK,” a title borrowed from a song by La Fève — a French rapper of Kino-Congolese and Cameroonian origin who embodies the “new wave” of French rap through the diversity of his influences and his innovative approach — serves here as a starting point. In the musical context, particularly in rap and hip-hop, a “hook” refers to the repetitive, catchy part of a track, usually the chorus, designed to catch the listener’s ear and remain in memory. “No Hook” literally means “no chorus” — an approach in which the track is built without this traditional repetitive structure. It breaks away from the commercial conventions of pop and rap music, favoring continuous flow, uninterrupted narration, or freer explorations of form. It is an artistic gesture that rejects the easy, predictable hook in favor of something rawer, more direct, and more authentic.

By integrating underscores into the title, Palluce continues the exploration he began earlier this year with _FINAL_FINAL, in his exhibition at Konschthal Esch (Luxembourg), which already evoked the impossibility of a definitive, fixed version in a digital world where every form seems forever subject to new revisions. With POST_JETLAG — what I would describe as an awakened sleep — the artist once again invites us to question our codes, whether religious, urban, or otherwise, and to plunge, not without humor, into a world in perpetual transformation.

One of the first — and one of the only — elements Jeremy brought directly from Luxembourg on his computer are the ad-libs from the latest album by his friend and colleague, Luxembourgish rapper Brooze. In a careerist and contextual approach, this latest album focuses on the German language, which is also audible in these fragments that overlap with those of a Korean rapper Yonge Jaundice, whom Jeremy also asked to send ad-libs from his recent songs. In this latter case, English is the language the Korean rapper champions to break into the scene. Brought together in the same space, face to face like a duel or a battle, the two universes intersect and respond to each other at the center of the room, where a minimal object placed on the floor echoes the pedestals of another work in the first room. The object lies there, waiting in the projection of light, ready to receive the moving bodies of the visitors, who—through their movement—activate an essential belief: that of believing in the creation of musical language, as though it were a religion.

The first World Cup in Korea — the 17th FIFA World Cup (official name: 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan) — took place from May 31 to June 30, 2002, in South Korea and Japan. They were the first Asian hosts of the tournament. It was the first time that, as a child, Jeremy ever heard of Korea. During his two-week residency at Studiya Gallery, he painted on wooden panels the colors of the World Cup ball — a kind of tornado, spinning top, or flame suggesting speed. The vivid, ultra-present colors no longer reveal the shape of the ball but give way to an imaginary symbol that could resemble a new emblem of a new religion or another emerging popular community, to be spread throughout the city or within our minds. A few days later, Jeremy decided to repaint the wooden frames entirely white, leaving only a few traces of the paint’s thickness visible, like veins — scars from a past whose memories are too recent yet to be dissected. On this new surface, he drew in pencil the words “Someone Who Admires God,” which he found in an Instagram post by Young Thug, the American rapper and singer whose real name is Jeffery Lamar Williams.

This gesture, which echoes Jeremy’s passion for popular events such as football gatherings and his devotion to hip-hop, appears again in another work: a jersey from his favorite team, Inter Milan — which he bought at a flea market in Seoul — suspended from a hook alongside representations of angels also sourced from a local hardware store. This suspension elevates the jersey to the level of an untouchable relic: the best, the essential, something attainable by others but not by the one who believes in it fully, with the faith of a supporter — the fanatic for whom football is a true religion.

This faith in God also reappears in the major intervention of reconstructing a monumental minimal cross within the exhibition space. It blurs any belonging to a specific doctrine. Visible from the outside, its shadow welcomes us into the exhibition, inviting us to connect with the omnipresent crosses in Seoul—Catholic or Protestant—recognizable for their red neon glow, sometimes of enormous size, a kind of visual punchline. Here, doubts intertwine, helping us grasp what seems to slip away amid all these prayers to God. And what face should one give to Jesus? The one that has infiltrated our collective memory for centuries? The cross, built at the scale of the exhibition space and assembled from materials recovered from the gallery — pedestals from previous exhibitions — invites us to dive into the secrets and mysteries of our own beliefs and their survival in a space as turned inward as outward. The discussion is only just beginning, and the transition from one space to another unfolds with complete fluidity, in an upheaval of beliefs that invites us to explore multiple spiritual paths.

Marco Godinho