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The Odd Couple at Gallery Yujiro

Seunghee Kang, creator of the “farting Mrs Blair” embroidery at the Still Dynamics show at the Jerwood Space in December, is one half of the Odd Couple currently showing at Gallery Yujiro in Bermondsey. Here’s the press release.

The Odd Couple

16 February – 21 April 2007
Gallery Yujiro | Studio Unit A502 Tower Point | Tower Bridge Business Complex | 100 Clements Road | London SE16 4DG | www.galleryyujiro.com

Work by Seunghee Kang

“The Odd Couple”: a joint solo exhibition of John Hughes and Seunghee Kang, both are odd, not particularly singularly but collectively they are an odd couple. Hughes was born in the UK, Kang in South Korea however both live and work in London, two different origins, two different practices. Hughes creates large-scale audio installations and Kang’s meticulous Hogarthesque drawings, paintings and sculpture, yet both are similar in exploring the nature and function of narrative. They also share a strange and unusual take on everyday actions and occurrences, transforming these observations into works saturated in dark and disturbing humour.

The exhibition is titled after the 1968 film “The Odd Couple”, staring Jack Lemmon & Walter Matthau as Felix Ungar and Oscar Maddison, is the story of two mismatched room-mates, one uptight, tidy and fastidious, the other slovenly, kooky and zany. In an interview, Lemmon described their unique relationship; “Walter is…like my brother. I don’t know what it is. When that type of chemistry occurs – I don’t know how to explain it. It just happens. You’re both on the same wavelength and something good comes out of it. It’s like having a third actor… There’s you, the other guy, and the two of you together as a third attraction. ”

This exhibition brings together the practices of Hughes and Kang who together produce a comparable third attraction. Hughes exhibits 5 audio installations, “Anne”, “You are my Burger King”, “Balkan Mantras”, “Seek New Havens”, & “Who’s that geezer?” which are a combination of monologues & conversations, and a selection of typed & hand written transcripts from “Seek New Havens”. Hughes’s practice is unusual, unexpected, strange and occasional, in its familiarity, where the conversations, become uncanny, and uncomfortably.

Kang’s drawings, paintings & sculptures, are deeply satirical, and darkly funny. Using drawing in a diaristic way, illustrating the Western, landscape of desire, excess, and capital. Kang depicts, narratives such as “Wonjogyoje”, a new term to describe the illicit relationship between an adult male and teenaged schoolgirl, where the man offers money in return for sexual gratification. Kang has found a totally different notion of “normal” in London, transforming the familiar into the eccentric and surprising, the result of living as a strange in a foreign city.

Map of Gallery Yujiro

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

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