Collecting All Nine Colors of Paint in Korea: MeeNa Park’s Solo Exhibition “Nine Colors & Nine Furniture“.. and More
Atelier Hermès
Collecting All Nine Colors of Paint in Korea: MeeNa Park’s Solo Exhibition “Nine Colors & Nine Furniture“
Nine Colors & Nine Furniture, a solo exhibition by MeeNa Park (b. 1973), will be on view at the Atelier Hermès from July 28 to October 8. Park’s work is characterized by collecting various colors and using them without mixing. The act of collecting colors and simple images is soon linked to social and cultural mechanisms and presented in her paintings. Representative works include ‘Orange Painting’ (2002-2003), in which she collected all the orange paints in Korea, and ‘Dingbat’ painting, in which she used the dingbat font to replace letters with simple images or symbols. As such, Park’s work is both archival and an exploration of the essential components of painting.
The exhibition will feature a series of work titles ‘Nine Colors & Nine Furniture’ (2023). This work is the same format as ‘Orange Painting’ (2002-2003) and the work exhibited at the Kukje Gallery in 2004. For this work, the artist researched nine domestically available paints, including black, blue, green, gray, orange, red, violet, white, and yellow, and painted them in average of 1.5 centimeters thick stripes, connecting them to furniture of this scale. These works go beyond the discourse of painting itself and point to themes such as the social conventions surrounding paint and the changing residential culture in Korea.
This exhibition will be an opportunity to take a closer look at Park’s work, which explores the components of painting itself, but also captures the real world and its institutions through it.
DOOSAN Gallery
The Reconstruction and Occurrence of Narrative through Exhibition: The Exhibition “#2”
DOOSAN Gallery is pleased to announce #2, an exhibition featuring artists Sojin Kwak, Rie Nakajima, Hae-youl Bae, Kyungmin Lee, and Choulgue Jung, on view from July 26 to August 20.
The exhibition is part of the ‘DOOSAN Curator Workshop’ program. ‘DOOSAN Curator Workshop’ is a program to discover and support young curators, and three curators are selected each year for the training program. Participants are then invited to present the results of their research by co-curating an exhibition at DOOSAN gallery. This exhibition is a collaboration between the 12th participants, Miji Lee, Mianah Lee, Minjoo Lee.
#2 considers the exhibition as an event that fragments the existing order and allows viewers to draw their own scenes based on it. Hae-youl Bae’s play Saving the Goat (2023) becomes the central axis of the exhibition, with the other four artists each presenting works based on a fragment of the play. They read the play together and respond to it in their own way. Sojin Kwak uses video, Kyungmin Lee uses installations, Rie Nakajima uses sound sculptures, and Choulgue Jung uses embroidery or drawing to approach the play. Rather than treating the play in narrative order, their work moves to new scenes based on the medium they use, the way they understand the play, and the format of the exhibition.
#2 seeks to create a space for the audience to interact with the dramatic moments that exhibitions can create, based on an understanding of the special time and space of exhibitions.
THIS IS NOT A CHURCH (TINC)
Non- humans you’re already familiar with: The exhibition “Prepared Life: A Study on Dolls, Puppets, and Creatures”
The exhibition Prepared Life: A Study on Dolls, Puppets, and Creatures will be on view at THIS IS NOT A CHURCH (TINC) from July 20 to August 12.
The exhibition seeks to illuminate on the non-human world by expanding our understanding of “dolls” to include “puppets”, which are often used in puppet theater, and “creatures”, which refer to beings whose species or category is not clear. The exhibition’s introduction traces the historical transformation and utilization of dolls from ancient times to the present, revealing that dolls have reflected with the times. In this way, the non-human has long infiltrated human life in the form of dolls, and the exhibition talks about the necessity of moving towards the non-human.
The eight participating artists, Hyeki Min, Laurie Simmons, Youngjin Yoo, Dongwook Lee, Basil Twist, Jun seo Hahm, Soojin Choi, and Hyeran Hwang, add to the narrative in a variety of ways, including photography, video, media art, performance, and installation. Youngjin Yoo weaves together the succulent plants the artist grows and the stories and objects he encounters while caring for them. Jun seo Hahm will present < Oridons, Bauplan >, a series of 3D animations featuring creatures with long, pointed mouth and four legs. On July 28 and 29, Soojin Choi and Hyeran Hwang explored objects such as chair, ball, and wire to examine the body as a part rather than a whole in a performance titled “Plus Multiply is a Star (+×=☆)”.
Expanding from an exploration of dolls to non-human discourse, the exhibition deepens the context in which we understand dolls and non-human today.
