Installation view of 《Forêt》 © ARARIO GALLERY
ARARIO GALLERY is pleased to
present 《Forêt》, a group exhibition featuring works by artists who participated in
this year’s Art Basel Hong Kong and Frieze New York OVR. featuring works from
the early 70s by central figures of Korean modern art, such as UM Tai-Jung and
CHOI Byungso; contemporary drawings by NOH Sangho, who recently joined ARARIO
GALLERY; sculptures by Kohei NAWA, one of Japan's leading sculptors; and a
painting by Christoph RUCKHÄBERLE, a member of the New Leipzig School, Germany.
The exhibition transcends time and space through the presentation of modern and
contemporary works by 14 artists.
The title of the exhibition 《Forêt》 derives from KIM Soun-Gui's
photographic work Forêt (of which the first edition is
placed in the Centre Pompidou collection). As a forest reveals itself by
embracing the codependency and diversity of the various living organisms within
its ecosystem, modern art, and anything we call contemporary art, reveals
itself in the works of artists. Contemporary art has a specific flow from
country to country, which embraces yet another stream of institutions and
galleries specific to each nation. The identity of such art museums and
galleries is formed by the gathering of represented artists and artworks. This
exhibition brings together the artists who not only have worked with ARARIO
GALLERY to present their respective diversity, but also implement the values
pursued by ARARIO GALLERY, including 'experimental spirit', 'art historical
presentation', and 'new experimentation' of works.
Installation view of 《Forêt》 © ARARIO GALLERY
In the exhibition, Birds
of Heaven, which UM Tai-Jung—the pioneer of Korean abstract sculpture
and the father of metal sculpture—worked on with a desire and challenge to
create a new sculpture at the age of 31 in 1969 is presented with Reclining
Figure 1 (2020-2021) by GWON Osang, who forged a new realm of
photographic sculpture in the 1990s. CHOI Byungso's conceptual photography Untitled
9750000-2 (1975/2020), which was exhibited at the “Daegu Contemporary
Art Festival” in 1975, will also be shown alongside KIM Soun-Gui's landscape
photographs, Forêt 1, Forêt2 (1998-1999), taken by the
artist in a remote French country forest. LEE Jinju's work Unseen
(2019), which focuses on the various intimate moments of her experience as a
mother, artist, and woman, is in juxtaposition with Monument of Hanbok(1998),
an abstraction of the hanbok skirt, symbolically expressing the patience and
sorrow of Korean mothers. Kohei NAWA's Ether (2021), which
resembles the motion of water dripping, coexists with UM Tai-Jung’s CARYATID-85(1985),
inspired by Constantin Brancusi’s Endless Column, revealing
the meaning of the sculptures going beyond time and space.
ARARIO GALLERY has continued to
deal with the values that contemporary art should pursue and the values that
artists should pursue with artists from various generations, nationalities, and
backgrounds. This exhibition provides an opportunity to reconsider the role and
value of art as well as experiencing works of historical, experimental, and
individual value.
