Details of the KCC’s exhibition which will see us through the summer months, focusing on homes and interiors:
A Room: New Readings of Korean Tradition
28 June 2011 – 31 August 2011
The Korean Cultural Centre (UK) is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition A Room: New Readings of Korean Tradition, a compelling exhibition that brings together various genres of art to reinterpret the everyday objects and spaces of traditional Korean living areas. This exhibition is an attempt to look into the aesthetic value of the Void and how it can be applied to contemporary urban spaces.
The core concept in Korea’s traditional space is the emptiness (Void). The idea of emptying has a complete value in itself. Emptying also represents the possibility of filling, however, it is not the left-over of the fullness or filling. It has its own intrinsic value that emptying creates. The Void is the pre-requisite that creates the harmony between us all, between objects, living spaces and nature.
Seven renowned architects and artists from Korea and the UK have participated in this exhibition. They focused on each area of the traditional living space of Korea. Based on a profound understanding of the prototype of tradition, they suggest contemporary application through new materials and methods.
The exhibition ranges from a live performance during the opening reception to sculpture, furniture design and installation works that expresses the various perspectives on tradition and their diverse methods of interpretation. The exhibition takes audiences on a stroll through the traditional living space with a contemporary perspective.
The Artists Talk will take place on 30 June 2011 from 19:00.
Details of the Exhibition
A thousand years of Seungmu – The Nun’s Dance. Performance by Yi Chuljin | Contact, Tate Britain, photograph by Uriel Orlow, curated by Home Live Art, 2009
1 Yard: Mikhail Karikis (Sound Architect) – The performance finds the corresponding points of the political background of The nun’s dance, or seungmu in Korean, which was derived from the persecution of Buddhism practice in the Joseon Dynasty. Karikis’ performance is concerned with notions of censorship and begins with the task of ‘speaking without being able to speak’. The work imagines the character of a high-flyer, a young ambitious male office worker. Karikis reflects on seungmu’s representations of personal struggle and invents a new visual language which is both ancient and contemporary.
Portable dining table from Tongyeong province | AL-SOBAN 50, 500 x 500 x 330 mm, Aluminum, 2011
2 Reception Room for a guest, sarangbang: Hongkyung Shin (Architect) – A traditional case for letters, a small cabinet and a table are placed evenly or can be stacked in layers at the corner of the space. Meanwhile a traditional desk, a small dining table and a tea tray are placed in the centre. Shin proposed a traditional dining table and a small storage unit in the material of acrylic and aluminium which are easily assembled as well.
Gentleman’s hat and cloths box, wood, Coreana Cosmetic Museum, Joseon Dynasty, 19C | White Clouds Dark Smoke VI, Brian Falconbridge, 104 x 150 x 37 mm, Cast and patinated bronze, 2009
3 The Opposite Room: Brian Falconbridge (Artist) – Falconbridge was inspired by the Korean hat box in a museum in Korea, which was deceptively simple but no less stunning. Its scale relation to the hands renders it approachable and intimate, its proportions convey quiet monumentality, its content restrained and poetic. These are all qualities that are central to his own sculptural practice and the particular sculpture, “White Clouds Dark Smoke VI” at the exhibition.
Peony mother-of-pearl gujeolpan (platter of Nine Delicacies) Whankyung Kim, 340 x 340 x 75 mm, Otchir (Korean Lacquer) | Untitled 1, Hyunsun Kim, 330 x 330 x 130mm, Otchir (Korean Lacquer) 2010
4 Master’s Room: Hyunsun Kim (Designer) – Kim’s work represents a desire to create art in accordance with Tao, or natural order by applying techniques of Korean Lacquer painting, the oldest painting in the country.
Relational Landscape: Gentleman’s house. Digital photo print, 2011
Relational Landscape: Korean traditional house decoration made from ‘Blue and White Ware’, Installation, 2011
5 Courtyard: Sunghee Ahn (Installation Artist) & Dongjin Seo (Space Designer)- The traditional Korean house (hanok) allows communication between nature and mankind. Ahn & Seo focused on the door, which produces the relationship and connecting points between spaces in the Hanok. Ahn & Seo picked ‘rack’, ‘hook’, ‘clamp’ and ‘hinge’, all of which work as agents determining the relationship between doors and spaces. Their work made of Korean blue and white celadon embodies the properties of those interiors.
Weaving, Photo by Chanwoo Park, C-print, 2010 | Bloom, 600 x 600 mm, acrylic, 2001
6 Annex: Manjae Koo (Space Designer) – Fabric made of the warp and the weft has the simplest structure. Flexibility of these organisations, symbolised by crossing each other between the warp and the weft, involves unyielding properties which embrace many things.
The contributing artists for the exhibition A Room are;
Sunghee Ahn | Brian Falconbridge | Mikhail Karikis | Hyunsun Kim | Manjae Koo | Dongjin Seo | Hongkyung Shin
