Seoul-based artist Lee Keunmin’s solo exhibition And then none were sick will be held at Space K Seoul until May 18, 2022.

Founded by the Kolon Group, a South Korean chemical and textile manufacturing company, Space K Seoul is an art museum which opened a larger facility in Magok-dong, Seoul in 2020. And then none were sick is the first major solo exhibition of a Korean artist after the museum moved to its current location.

As one of the museum’s goals is to enhance the understanding of contemporary visual culture, it has been introducing both Korean and international artists who are lesser known in the country.

In 2021, the museum’s exhibitions mainly focused on featuring solo and two-person shows of renowned international artists, such as the American artist Hernan Bas (b. 1978), British artist Ryan Gander (b. 1976), and Neo Rauch (b.1960) and Rosa Loy (b.1958). This year’s first exhibition will start with introducing an emerging Korean artist.

Lee Keunmin (b. 1982) is a painter who creates works in pencil, charcoal, and oil to depict images driven by his illusions and personal experiences. Lee has been experiencing hallucination since childhood and was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder in 2001 while in undergraduate school. As an act of turning his suffering into works of art, these experiences have eventually become Lee’s main subject matter.

Lee’s illusions are depicted as visually powerful abstract images reminiscent of human flesh and internal organs. These grotesque images are also a projection of how Lee looks at the world, especially after his experience of being diagnosed with his disorder. His art is Lee’s way of defying contemporary society’s tendency to define, categorize, and classify the world. Lee sees this paradigm as a structural violence that works to distinguish aboriginality, orientalism, outlanders, and invalids from what it considers standardized

The works of Lee Keunmin were reviewed by Donald Kuspit in the January 2015 issue of Artforum and by Re’al Christian in the November 2019 issue of Art in America. He was presented in many solo and group exhibitions in Korea and in the US, andnd his works are also in Spain’s Colección SOLO.

Space K established in 2011 in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi-do and has supported more than 400 artists through numerous exhibitions. In 2020, the museum moved to Gangseo-gu, the southwestern part of Seoul, and became one of the largest art exhibition spaces in the area. The museum aims to support the ongoing practice of artists by holding various exhibitions and contributes to the local community by fostering art culture.

References

• 스페이스 K 서울 (Space K Seoul)