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Gallery: Korean Artists at London Art Fair 2017

Business Design Centre

A quick post to upload some of the photos of the various galleries exhibiting Korean art at this year’s London Art Fair (plus one gallery that I missed).

Hanmi Gallery

Jaye Moon

Jaye Moon’s work had been getting a fair amount of attention – guerrilla-style installations of Lego dotted around the Business Design Centre and a larger installation to which visitors could contribute – as well as a more formal installation in Hanmi’s gallery in the Project Space. Artfund picked her work as one of the top 5 things to see in the fair.

Needless to say, people were delighted when they came across the work with the Harry Potter references.

Joonhong Min

Junebum Park

Park’s work, being video art, is pretty much impossible to photograph, so here’s the still that went with Hanmi Gallery’s press release. Tiny box-like objects being endlessly arranged and re-arranged in dolls-house like rooms: a fruitless labour.

Junebum Park: The room inaccessible, (2011)
Junebum Park: The room inaccessible, (2011). 3 channel, HD, 06’27”, 07’03”, 06’32”, NTSC, Sound, Colour

Skipwiths

Lee Yun-hee

It’s always good to pop into Skipwiths to see what works they have from the back catalogue of established artists, and to see what new artists they are representing. This year, Grey had picked up ceramist Lee Yun-hee, with work from her Divine Comedy series:

Chun Kwang-young and Park Hyojin

An older work (from the 90s if I remember right) from the hanji artist Chung Kwang-young, and new work from Park Hyojin.

Atelier Aki

Atelier Aki had new work by Lee Sea-hyun which is subtly different from his previous work (though of course still red), but for some reason I totally failed to take any photographs. The works that caught my attention were plastic sculptures by Yoon Dujin that looked as if they came from a science fantasy novel, and some very organised-looking pieces that looked like miniature libraries, by Kang Yehsine

Crane Kalman

Choi Young-jin

I am grateful to Wai Lu-yin for alerting me – unfortunately after the event – that Crane Kalman Brighton were showing work by Choi Young-jin. I first came across his work documenting the environmental issues surrounding the Saemangeum project at an exhibition in 2009, and since then he has “become increasingly celebrated for documenting nature in raw, straightforward, and powerful photography“. I was sorry to miss his West Sea photographs at the fair. So here is an image courtesy of the gallery website:

Choi Young-jin: Geojeon (2016). Ultrachrome print.
Choi Young-jin: Geojeon (2016). Ultrachrome print. Courtesy the gallery and artist.

Elsewhere

Elsewhere Albemarle / Pontone’s Lee Jaehyo had moved on to more representational pieces in his series of works using bent nails on charred wood; and Purdy Hicks still had some Bae Chan-hyo on display. At Gallery Do, the intricate work of Shin Yong-il, combining references to the Jikji and its early use of moveable metal type with Buddhist thought, was beautiful and peaceful to contemplate, and no photograph can accurately capture the emotions it evokes. This is work created out of meditation:

Beginning with the natural, Shin starts his work by writing the contents of Jikji on the canvas in mud. When the writing is completed, he covers the writing with soil and mud to return them to Emptiness. After that process, he delicately wipes out the painting by tapping away the colours. Through the soil the writing of the Jikji gradually materialises.

Work by Shin Yong-il
Work by Shin Yong-il (courtesy the gallery and artist)

If I had a bottomless bank account it is probably Shin’s work that I would want to have on my wall.

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