In 1995, the British architect Cedric Price (1934–2003) developed an urban-design concept for London. It proposed variable magnetic infrastructure facilities to provide inhabitants with flexibility, open communications, and other freely available possible uses in the public realm. Walkways, stairs, elevators, etc. were to be made for temporary repeated use and able to dock to other positions wherever need be. This unrealized project is one of two starting points of Koo Jeong A’s Magnet Cities, the other one being medical, or bioenergetic, magnet therapy. As part of her ten-year exploration of the two subjects, the artist developed a series of sculptures made of industrially produced, off-the-shelf ferrite magnets in 2018. The small-scale walls and enclosures that are presented on plinths of Portland stone, a limestone typically used in historic London buildings, appear equally solid and volatile. Self-contradictory as it seems, this observation speaks to the almost unconditional usability of the material. Koo Jeon A uses it to create a field of tension that engages bodies (of viewers or actors) and architecture.

Brigitte Huck, 2020 (translation: Michael Strand)