paradox-of-place

Angel-Soldier by Lee Yongbaek — *Angel-Soldier* (video still) (detail), 2011, Lee Yongbaek.

Paradox of Place: Contemporary Korean Art

Oct 31 2015 – Mar 13 2016

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Tateuchi Galleries

This will be the first major exhibition of Korean contemporary art in Seattle. In collaboration with Ms. Choi Eunju, former chief curator of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, and the first in-residence visiting curator sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation at the Seattle Art Museum, SAM will present six leading-edge Korean contemporary artists’ representative works in this exhibition.

These works range from mixed-media installation and video art, to photography, all of which are prominent forms in Korean contemporary art. Each work in its own way addresses an important, often poignant, issue, and yet, as a group, all the works address paradoxes in Korean art and society.

#ParadoxOfPlace

Noh Suntag

“

I’m an artist, activist, and a journalist.

”

Noh Suntag

Since the debut of his first photography series, Fragrance of the Division (2004), Noh Suntag has produced an array of compelling photographic works. Born in Seoul in 1971, Noh has never lived outside of Korea. He rides the line between photojournalist, artist and citizen, and he acknowledges this unique, sometimes difficult position. His work questions the ethical implications of the militarization of his country.

With his wife and young daughter, Noh falsely registered as a resident in the Daechu-ri village on the border between North and South Korea. He opened a studio there to document the imposing Radome (radar + dome) of the U.S. military that hovers above the land. The resulting frames and shots compose his the strAnge ball series, in which he takes multiple photographs of the Radome from different locations, elevations, and times of day that showcase how the strange white ball sometimes appears as though it’s a natural part of the landscape, and sometimes imposes itself in a chilling manner on this quiet countryside’s rural way of life.

Lee Yongbaek

Following on the heels of Nam June Paik—considered to be the founder of video art—Lee Yongbaek represents the next generation of video artists, as well as those who specialize in robotics, sound, and kinetics. Lee was born in 1966, graduated from the Department of Painting at Hongik University in Korea, and received his graduate degree from Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design in Germany. His media works reveal and question our diversified society by touching upon contradictory subjects such as war and peace, Buddha and Jesus, and the real and the imagined.

Rather than cling to forms of the past, Lee strives to explore new territories, worlds, and mediums. The work Angel-Soldier is a video performance depicting the stark contrast between the two figures that expresses the social conditions of Lee’s youth. Five uniforms from the Angel-Soldier series will be on view in the exhibition.

“

Art, as I see it, is about expanding ideas and perceptions.

”

Lee Yongbaek

Lim Minouk

*Possibility of the Half* (video still), 2012, Lim Minouk

“

Their sobbing made me feel like the nation is a huge theatrical stage, and I subverted the idea of media... This is a new news studio with solidarity.

”

Lim Minouk

Lim Minouk was born in 1968 in Daejeon, Korea, and her work engages with the basic elements of city life—particularly focusing on Korea’s rapid urban development. She studied at Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Art in Paris and established the “Pidgin Collective,” a group she organized to pursue alternative forms of activism in a purposeful way. Lim pursues the ambiguity of situations—the personal memories and sensitivities—and the subversion of ideology that results from it.

Her large-scale multimedia installation in the exhibition is The Possibility of the Half, which was shortlisted for the 2012 Korea Artist Prize. In the work she reimagines the site of a Korean television studio. Viewers see sports recaps, weather reports (highlighting the effects of global warming), and dramatic, black-and-white scenery of grieving people who attended and sobbed at the funerals of Kim Jong Il of North Korea and former president Park Jung-Hee of South Korea. Lim blew up and slowed down the speed of these videos, heightening the emotional responses they will invariably summon in viewers. Despite different ideologies in North and South Korea, she creates a common, shared humanity among them.

Yang Haegue

Yang Haegue currently lives and works in both Berlin and Seoul. She was born in Seoul in 1971 and received her undergraduate degree in Seoul and her master’s degree in Frankfurt. Yang has conceptually expanded the objects and phenomenon of everyday life referred to as “salim” in Korean (an appropriate synonym for “salim” is “housekeeping” in English), such as a refrigerator, furnace, shower head, air conditioner, humidifier, window blinds, clotheshorse, and sensual experiences such as smell. Through her work, Yang displays sensory spontaneity via abstract narratives, surpassing the boundaries of interior and exterior, singularity and community, private and public, and even local and global.

Female Natives is a group of six anthropomorphic light sculptures, a series composed of light bulbs, electric cords, and readymade and handcrafted materials. Artificial plants and wigs are combined around a commercial metal stand, conjuring up figures imbued with personality and history.

Also on exhibit is Gymnastics of the Foldables (2006), a humorous series of black-and-white photographs of a clotheshorse engaged in callisthenic exercises.

Female Natives by Haegue Yang — *Female Natives No. 4 Lunar Calendar*, 2010, Yang Haegue.

Yee Sookyung

“

I work in order to change myself.

”

Yee Sookyung

Yee Sookyung’s work combines histories—art historical, spiritual, and cultural—into singular images, performances, and objects. Born in Seoul in 1963, Yee works and lives in her hometown to this day. She received both her undergraduate degree and MFA in painting from the National University in Seoul. She makes use of traditional Asian materials like ceramics and cinnabar. By engaging concepts like translation, transportation, and regeneration to the works, she generates synchronicity, and establishes artistic theories. She takes existing ceramic works and turns them into new sculptures that are softly shaped, anthropomorphic, and universally beautiful.

An example is her presentation of Thousand, an installation composed of porcelain shards, epoxy, and 24k gold leaf. The work took Yee three years to complete, and the artist believes that the repetitive, manual aspect of shaping the ceramic pieces together has helped change her artistic practice—moving away from concept, and instead shifting focus to the labor-intensive process of art making.

Jung Yeondoo

The question Jung Yeondoo asks himself as an artist is, “Can art change one’s life?” Jung lives and works in Seoul where he was born in 1969. He earned his undergraduate degree in Seoul, and then moved on to England to receive his MFA at the University of London. A photographer and videographer, Jung works with people he meets and discovers, and his pieces result from the conversations that naturally arise from these meetings.

Jung is a storyteller who produces captivating narratives told through images, and a representative example of this is his photography series, Bewitched. In composing the series, he seamlessly weaves together the stories of ideal and realistic paradoxes carried on by these individuals via the rhetoric of dreams, persistent longing, and hope. The futures that Jung attempts to create are realized by highlighting the extreme effects of mise-en-scène within photography, video imagery, performance, and virtual reality.

Bewtiched by Jung Yeondoo — *Bewitched #2 Seoul*, 2002, Jung Yeondoo.

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Paradox of Place: Contemporary Korean Art

Noh Suntag

Lee Yongbaek​​​​​​​​​​​

Lim Minouk​​​​​​​​​​​

Yang Haegue​​​​​​​​​​​

Yee Sookyung​​​​​​​​​​​

Jung Yeondoo​​​​​​​​​​​​

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