Installation view of 《Everyday Images, How They Address Us》 © Seoul National University Museum of Art
The Seoul
National University Museum of Art presents a special exhibition 《Everyday Images, How They Address Us》 on
view through November 22.
In the
mid-twentieth century, pop art actively brought images from advertising,
consumer goods, comics, and mass media into the realm of art. As mass media and
consumer culture continued to grow and new forms of media emerged, Korean
artists likewise began to appropriate and transform images and objects from
everyday life, combining them with other images to reflect the society and
culture of their time.
Installation view of 《Everyday Images, How They Address Us》 © Seoul National University Museum of Art
《Everyday
Images: How They Address Us》 approaches Korean pop art
not as a single style or a fixed group of artists, but through the diverse ways
in which “pop” elements have emerged and evolved in Korean contemporary
art—from images of mass media and consumer society, comics and characters, and
combinations of traditional painting with popular culture to images produced
and circulated in today’s digital environment.
Installation view of 《Everyday Images, How They Address Us》 © Seoul National University Museum of Art
The
title of this exhibition, “How They Address Us”, asks what these images from
everyday life communicate to us, and how they do so when they become works of
art. Like advertisements designed to sell products, comics that convey stories,
and characters repeatedly consumed as cultural commodities, everyday images
speak to us in their own distinct ways.
Artists
select and transform these visual images, separating them from their original
purposes and contexts, sometimes turning them into objects of critique or
imbuing them with new meanings. Encountering familiar images from everyday life
once again within works of art, viewers come to recognize where these images
originally came from and construct diverse meanings through the artworks.
This
exhibition offers an opportunity to trace how pop imagery has evolved within
Korean contemporary art while reconsidering how the everyday images we
encounter and consume each day speak to us.
Participating
Artists: Kwon Kisoo, Gwon Osang, Hwahyun Kim, Jun Noh, Grim Park, Gi
Hwan Seo, Donghyun Son, Shin Hak Chul, Aokizy, ARTNOM, Lee Donggi, Wonwoo Lee, Lee
Yunsung, DoHa Ham
