One of the Korean artists featured was Choi So-young (b 1980), who has a show coming up at the Union Gallery later this year. Choi specialises in creating panoramic landscapes out of recycled denim. Her 3 meter wide cityscape (below) was sold for the equivalent of USD232,714.

The Union Gallery are still collecting your old jeans to be transformed into Choi’s next creation. See here for details.

Other artists whose work was sold last week were (images bottom, left to right):

• Hong Kyoung Tack (b 1968), whose colourful Library II (1995-2001) raised USD588,000 (just beating the top end estimate by 10%, and setting a new record for the artist)
• Kim Tschang Yeul (b 1929), whose peaceful large scale oil Water Drops (1981) raised USD542,000
• Kim Dong Yoo (b 1965), whose greyscale pixellated Rose & Explosion (2003) raised USD403,000
• Chun Kwang Young (b 1944), whose sculptural hanji creation Aggregation (2006) raised USD279,000 (more or less doubling the pre-sale estimate)

Click on the thumbnails below and the image above to be taken to the relevant page of the Christie’s website.

Links:

• Christie’s post-sale press release
• Christie’s pre-sale press release: “Largest and most-valuable sale of Asian Contemporary Art ever offered”

Image credits: Christie’s Images Ltd

Doesn’t sound a very good deal, huh? But let me explain further. Korean artist Choi So-young specialises in creating work out of denim. She’s going to be exhibiting at the Union Gallery in 2008… but she needs the raw materials to work with.

So the deal is this: YOU can be part of a collaborative, interactive art-making making experience. Or something like that. Send in your jeans to the Union Gallery — or any old denim articles you don’t want any more — and they will be transformed into a work of art. And YOU will be invited to the party celebrating the launch of the exhibition as a mark of gratitude.

I know the Union Gallery does great parties. I went to a crazy one involving lots of black ink being hurled onto T-shirts to the accompaniment of some live heavy metal music. It was a blast. And because Jari Lager, the boss, is of German extraction the hot dogs were superb as well.

Links:

• Union Gallery: Choi So-young Participate