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Arario Gallery is pleased to present "KIAF in Eko NUGROHO", a presentation of works under the theme of “an exhibition within an exhibition”. The works, which are being presented at the KIAF Online Viewing Room will be on show at the Seoul gallery space along with the ongoing solo exhibition by Eko NUGROHO. Through the concept of an artist’s open studio, Arario Gallery overcomes the limitations of online art fairs and offers an opportunity for the public to experience the works in the physical space of the gallery.
This presentation will showcase not only young artists from Arario Gallery, such as GWON Osang, Kohei NAWA, LEE Dongwook, KIM Inbai, and LEE Jinju, but also key artists who represent the history of Korean art, including UM Taijung, SHIM Moonseup, JUNG Kangja, and RYU In. Collectors and visitors will have a unique opportunity to wander through and experience the works in areas, which have often been considered as hidden spaces. The exhibition will be held from 16 September to 17 October in conjunction with KIAF 2020.
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LEE Dongwook, Trophy, 2018
LEE Dongwook’s sculptures are realistically grounded. The artist observes the struggles of an individual within modern society through a specific method of expression, which leans towards his private life and personal taste. While the artist's cynical and distanced gaze is filtered through humor and wit, the content of his works are grave and serious, acting as a critique or accusation of reality.
<Trophy> reveals the inseparable relationship between individual and society through remnants and traces of the delicately placed human figure among the artist's various collectibles. Through this work, the artist points out topics of alienation, balance, division, and isolation, which derives from the aforementioned relationship.
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PARK Youngsook has played a major role in the history of Korean photography and the feminist movement. The artist has been working with portrait photography, highlighting the sexuality of women which was considered incomplete and a target of subversive exclusion in society. Positioning women's bodies in a provocative way, PARK raised questions about the inequality of gender dynamics and the history of female oppression. <Tears of a Shadow> showcases Park's first landscape photography series following her persistent attempt, curiosity, and investigation of women's life and the foundation of the female spirit.
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LEE Jihyun, Twinning_Fiddle Leaf Corner, 2019
LEE Jihyun creates a narrative structure of consciousness through the layering and unfolding of spatial compositions. The afterimage of public places entangled with familiar and private spaces evokes a sense of nostalgia in her paintings. These fragmentations of memory are patched through editing and rearranging scenes from daydreams and reality, which confront the conventional ways of perceiving space and time.
<Twinning_Fiddle Leaf Corner> reconstructs the process of confining the ephemeral state of mind by releasing that moment onto the canvas. Capturing images of plants rooted in pots and various scenes of everyday life reflected on tabletops, the artist creates a visually stimulating composition layered with instantaneous and personal memories.
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EKO Nugroho, Unity in Hiding, 2018
One of the most internationally renowned artists from Indonesia, Eko NUGROHO has received international acclaim for his experimental attitude towards expanding the horizon of art through sculpture, performance, and comics by reinterpreting traditional media such as murals and wall hangings and representing the voice of the public.
The square canvas works acknowledges the animated imagination of the artist. A knight battling a dragon, a clown and monkey hiding in the dense Indonesian jungle, figures wearing t-shirts amidst a backdrop of blooming flowers are depicted through their eyes. The eyes of these characters expose very little about their hidden personalities. The artist repurposes the image of masked identities to reflect the chaos, discrimination, and violence witnessed throughout history, veiled by a façade of democracy, equality, and peace. The emotional commotion that NUGROHO has experienced in his longing for harmony and peace is revealed through his vivid brushstrokes that fill the scenes of his paintings, as though taken out of a panel from a comic strip.
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Insane PARK, Joy of Painting, 2020
Insane PARK has explored the correlation between the visual and perceptual culture, based on interest in media and images. By analyzing and dismantling the conventional images in recognition that are repeatedly exposed through the media, the artist attempts to express the essence and limitations of the human being which is perceived through the eyes.
By parodying the widely renowned TV program Bob Ross’s “Joy of Painting”, <Joy of Painting> series humorously satirizes the value of art determined by mechanism of art market system. Insane Park collages scenes from the program in order to fabricate an episode in which Bob Ross, American painter and original host of the show, gives an “easy-to-follow” tutorial. The works which have been created by borrowing from and imitating elements of the show reflects the artist’s intrigue in questioning the role of art in the contemporary art market within the structure of capitalism.
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BYUN Soonchoel, Interracial Couple, 2001
With his interest in people as his foundation, BYUN Soonchoel dissolves his faithful observation of subject matter into intense self-awareness in his work. As Korea's representative portrait photographer, BYUN neither decorates nor circumvents subject or fact. Rather, he captures cultural norms, social structures, and the lives of people as well as the truth that they face in a specific moment in time through photography. BYUN is currently having a solo exhibition at the Korea Society in New York and will be holding a comprehensive retrospective at Sungkok Art Museum in October 2020.
The <Interracial Couple> series explores the contrasting themes of freedom and subordination, an inevitable element of any relationships. The series, which photographs couples and families of different races, derived from the socio-cultural differences that the artist experienced during his time in New York. The artist reveals the intimate and private spaces belonging to the subjects of his photographs in order to visualize the differences inherent to relationships, which cannot be overcome despite the similarities.
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HWANG Gyutae, pixel, 2018
HWANG Gyutae made his name as an iconoclast early on in the 1960s with his experimental approaches at the forefront of avant-garde photography, ranging from film burning, borrowing and compositing, analog montage, and double exposure. His interests in digital image in the 1980s led to new frontiers, such as digital montage, collage, and compositing. Through an extended cycle of experimentations, he found ‘pixels’ – the micro unit of images in a form of dot, in the digital images. Drawn to the infinite possibility and visual potential of these geometric images, HWANG launched his <Pixel> series.
<Pixel> series lacks, or falls short of the basic process of “recording” in photography, and instead harbors “choice” and “magnification.” In other words, his works move away from the traditional process of capturing an object and making it appear on the sensitive film strip, and instead focus on discovering a wide variety of pixels in different forms and colors as they appear in the process of choosing and magnifying images and monitors. That already exists for disparate reasons, ultimately visualizing and materializing them through a range of methods.
KIAF in Eko NUGROHO: Online Viewing Room
Past viewing_room
