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Place Not Found: Korean Art Now at Forman’s Smokehouse Gallery

Congratulations to the LKL Art History features writer Eunjung Shin for curating her first show, at an exciting venue overlooking the Olympic Stadium. Plenty of high-profile artists are showing their work. Undoubtedly the exhibition of the month.

Place Not Found: Korean Art Now

Forman’s Smokehouse Gallery
Stour Road | Fish Island | Hackney Wick | E3 2NT
10 May – 3 June 2012

About the Exhibition

Forman’s Smokehouse Gallery is delighted to present ‘Place Not Found’ curated by Eunjung Shin, showing work by 15 South Korean artists most of whom relocated their working places from South Korea to London. Forman’s smokehouse, Britain’s oldest salmon smokers was likewise forced to relocate by the Olympic development to its current premises, overlooking the London 2012 Olympic Park. The works represented in the gallery space embody the artists’ experiences of a search for a place that can not be found. The gallery becomes a site for storytelling, exploring both existing and imaginary places in personal, conceptual, cultural and political spheres.

Place Not Found - poster

Place Not Found also relates to the transition of Hackney Wick from a traditional industrial zone to a vibrant spot of creativity. This progression inspires participating artists in Place Not Found presenting their perceptions as they respond to notions of rapid change and new surroundings.

Place Not Found is a group exhibition showing a big variety of work such as sculpture, paintings, photography and installations.

About the Artists

Jinkyun Ahn shows photographs of his cave in the form of a tent made from white cloth hung from the ceiling. By performing personal rituals in front of the camera including photographic equipment such as light stands and electric wires he turns the family relationship into an objective rather than a personal experience.

Chinwook Kim describes himself as an agent of healing for people who depart from reality and lose their identity. In his paintings and sculptures in the ‘Inside and outside’ series, he demonstrates how to maintain a balance between the conscious and the subconscious world.

Beomsik Won worked with construction sites in South Korea creating new photographic images and in the UK he has worked with Britain’s buildings in the same way. The Archisculpture Project makes new stories, connecting every meaning of architecture by dismantling a cityscape.

Luna Jung-eun Lee‘s work is based on collage, constructed and deconstructed found fragmental images that explore the socio-cultural forms in our global community. Her work directly indicates contradictory principles, real and fake, natural and artificial, analog and digital.

Minae Kim’s Conundrums, her telescope style sculpture provides viewers with a dilemma in which they similarly experience trying to understand their selves and their surroundings.

Jiho Won questions the place where we belong. He criticizes the fact that people draw a line between them and others with a symbol of distinction such as a flag and kill each other because they do not belong together. His war memorial with replicated coffins represents meaningless death in the war and De-Union Jack demonstrates his attempt to remove a flag as an emblem of differentiation.

Jungyun Roh has collected images of London with her drawings of sites of cultural significance. For example, she had observed the construction process of the Olympic Stadium. She recreates her own image of London with this collection of cultural symbols.

Shan Hur‘s sculptures present a puzzle: viewers must find the sculptures in the gallery and complete the crossword puzzle. The source objects for his bronze sculptures were found by the artist in ordinary scenes such as on the street or in office buildings. These places have since disappeared and now only the objects remain, embodying his memories and creating new memories for his viewers.

Francesca Cho “Our days on earth are like grass, like wild flowers, we bloom and die…” (Psalms). The transient nature of our existence has become the defining element in Francesca Cho’s work. Her installation does not need to be mowed; without active intervention, the grass will wither and dry within two weeks indoors, or within six weeks out of doors.

Sejin Moon’s Neutral Territory series explores women in their working environments. Moon’s photographic work has been highly influenced by her cultural journey moving from South Korea to the UK and her personal experiences in her professional life.

Kyunghee Park is working with the unique time of trace,which overlaps with the present when the subject, that is, the trace exists; however, it is never the time that belongs to the concept of the present time. Her 17 years old Tool Box is the time of trace itself. By using transformation into a shape which seems to be an metamorphosed skin, she intends to represent herself.

Hyunjun Kim & Taeyoung Kim‘s collaboration work, ‘Light-scape’ is composed of the immaterial landscape of Korean mountains. It conveys memories of their home country, the sun, wind and streams which they cannot find in the UK. It is an abstract, collective pattern which extends its boundaries to the site it occupies through the manipulation of lighting effects.

Jukhee Kwon treats a book as an artistic material which allows her to visualize her imagination and ideas. Her first reaction is to the space and the interaction with the place where the book will be situated. Many creations follow on from the destruction of old things. Jukhee Kwon’s book is no longer a book that is used in daily life but it is given new meaning through the perceptions of other people.

Eunhyea Choi leads viewers to invisible space across time. She represents the faint outlines of the invisible beings, the lingering ambiance of light and the emotional respiration coming from the stream of sub conscience, all experienced through the mutual perception of time and space.

Visitor Information

Address: Stour Road Fish Island Hackney Wick E3 2NT London
Opening Hours: Thursday – Friday: 5pm –9pm; Saturday – Sunday: 12am – 5pm
Contact: [email protected]
Nearest Tube: Hackney Wick Overground
Buses: 8 26 30 236 276 388 488
Website: http://www.smokehousegallery.org

Links:

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

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