Seoul, August 19 – September 19, 2015 http://www.songeunartspace.org
As the title suggested, this was the second part of the show, and indeed it was a continuation of part one. Overall it seemed that this two-part exhibition tried to give justice to each and every artist SongEun has cooperated with in the last 5 years. There was no curatorial theme or narrative, which was good to simply see different artists in a nice space, to get an “objective” overview of Songeun Art Space’s preferences and of a slice of Korean art scene, a bit like an art fair but much more calm and focused. The poster design was fresh and attractive too.
Following, some samples from the show:
Lee Soo-In: A work which hints at the design background of the artist, and represents one trend within (Korean) art, where art and design overlap, and the output is placed within the art world realm: Strong lines and colors and vector graphics thinking. The two tube-shaped objects, kind of ‘useless products’, their uselessness being what places them into the art realm.
Kim Jae-Bum: A big banner spanning two floors of the museum, hinting at the author’s involvement with the advertising and fashion industry. I first thought it is a staged project, but according to the description, the author ‘became interested in the shoes worn by women in burkas’ when he visited Malaysia, which made it look more like a project of a curious tourist–stalker-fetishist observing aliens.
Kim Ji-Sun: Woodcut-like acrylic paintings of flowers, the slightly interesting part was the precise execution and painting on the sides of the stretcher.
Kwon Jaena: This work served as a nice contrast to the aforementioned flower paintings. Both works couldn’t be more different, yet they resonated in their sculptural aspect, as they were both hovering somewhere between two and three-dimensional works. While Kim Jin-Sun’s flower paintings seemed to expand into a space similar to a wallpaper of present wrapping, Kwon Jaena’s objects-paintings looked like melted plastic designer chairs – a three-dimensional volume reduced to two and a bit more dimensions. The material seemed to be ceramics.
Boo Ji-Hyun: A dark room covered with a layer of salt on the floor, illuminated by blue LEDs placed in big lightbulb-like objects, accompanied by a short (about 1 min) looped emotive electronic music soundtrack. It was interesting as a sensory experience, but the soundtrack and the clutter of objects and cables hinted too much at the underlying sentimental pathos, which somehow polluted what could have been a strong sensory experience.
Choi Jung-Woo: An oversized bar-chair topped with a disco light ball on top that only works when one claps. “Based on the artists impression of culture of Pataya when traveling in Thailand.”…
Shin Jung-Kyun: Video of a nightly treasure hunt in some park with sculptures of revolutionaries and soldiers. The camera self-filmed by a group of college girls in Blair Witch movie style, without the horror element. The language barrier prevented me from understanding more. Probably to be put somewhere in the post-internet art category.
Chung Seung-il: For photos of Songeun Art Space building itself, pasted upside down on four chairs’ seats, linked in pairs with mirroring foil stretched over the backrest. It was an interesting attempt to relate to the location itself, but I didn’t understand why chairs were used, placed somewhat randomly (although symmetrically) in the space.