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Art Fair news: Hanmi Gallery presents Guem MinJeong at LAF

Hanmi Gallery will be participating in the Project space of the London Art Fair, presenting Guem MinJeong’s work for the first time in London:

Guem MinJeong

Hanmi Gallery | Art Projects P8 | London Art Fair 2016
20 – 24 Jan 2016 | Business Design Centre | London N1 0QH

Guem MinJeong, site: entered, 2014
Guem MinJeong, site: entered, 2014. Book, LED monitor, mixed media, 31 x 38 x 16 cm.

Hanmi Gallery is pleased to show a solo presentation of the Korean multi-media artist Guem MinJeong’s (b.1977) video-sculptures and video-installations for LAF Art Projects 2016. This will be the first London presentation of the Seoul based artist.

Collective memory and space are integral to the Guem’s concerns and research. Focusing on the historical context and density which certain spaces poss, the artist extracts specific interior and architectural features as a framework of her visual representation. Guem recreates private and public spaces and constructs new and ambiguous narratives.

Guem has showcased a series of site-specific video and sculpture installation works – Breathing, Twisted and Melting Object series – on the theme of ‘breathing space.’ Guem’s video installations transform the shape of a white wall or embrace impossible external spaces such as forests and ocean into an interior space. ‘Exhibition space’ itself becomes the subject matter for the artist.

In works such as Breathing Door (2007) depict a large white closed door which inflate and deflate to the sound of slow breathing. The symbolism of doors in art history can be traced back to paintings inside Egyptian tombs, signalling beginnings, transition, gateways and time. Guem’s digitally manipulated image of ‘breathing’ door allows for a meeting point between everyday realities and vivacity of human imagination. The embodiment of ‘breath’ in Guem’s works instills specific stories which a certain space has accumulated through the flow of history and time. The natural relationships imbued in the act of ‘breathing’ is also consolidated into a poetic scenario and choreographed movement.

Guem MinJeong, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Prison for woman, 2014
Guem MinJeong, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Prison for woman, 2014. 2 LED monitor, mixed media, 65 x 150 x 15 cm.

Guem explains that “By making the space that I experience move and breathe, I would rather express the self in it – that is, the essence and value of humans. I wanted to take a closer look at it as a symbol representing the essence of people by moving a physical space, not a narrative film as virtual reality”. Her emphasis on creating ‘space’ is the result of the artist’s quest to distill the essence of humans through these vacuums rather than to construct a narrative film or virtual reality. Guem MinJeong’s medium choice of working with video allows the artist to overturn and deconstruct issues of ‘time’ and fuse history with personal memories.

Trained in sculpture, Guem MinJeong holds DFA from Yonsei University and MFA and BFA from Hongik University, Seoul. Guem has completed large public art project commissions by Lexus and Samsonite in Seoul and Busan. In 2014 Guem took part in the ‘Green River’ project Korea/Taiwan Exchange Artist Residency in Tamsui, Taiwan. Her works are held in private, and public collections including Kumho Museum of Art and Seoul Museum of Art. Guem lives and works in Seoul, Korea.

Links:

(automatically generated) Read LKL’s review of this event here.

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