The opening of Lee Ufan’s “Marking Infinity” at the Guggenheim. Lee tells his audience how he spent three weeks wrestling with the curved interior space of the Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda. http://twitpic.com/5h3ui5 [Read More]
Category: Exhibition reviews and comment (page 16)
Poetry in Clay at the Metropolitan Museum
Poetry in Clay, the exhibition of Buncheong Ceramics from the Leeum Museum currently at the Metropolitan Museum is seriously worth a visit, with some beautiful pots. Interesting that they also juxtapose a couple of 20th century paintings. Kim Whanki’s dot paintings really do look like the dot decoration on one of the pots # Curator … [Read More]
Park Dae-cho at Able Fine Art
Strolling back along W 25th St from Tina Kim Gallery I wandered into Able Fine Art and caught the end of Park Dae-cho’s solo exhibition (May 17 – June 21, 2011). Haunting images of children with unsettling visions in their eyes. [Read More]
Rhee Kibong: There is no Place
Just caught the end of the Rhee Kibong exhibition at Tina Kim Gallery. His foggy 3D tree images look like he’s loosely pressed a miniature tree between sheets of frosted glass. Very calming. [Read More]
Exhibition visit: Embracing the Void
South Korea has received a crash course in modernity in recent years. Through Japanese occupation, the Korean war, democratisation, industrialisation and globalisation, Korea has had to adapt, and fast. High rises now abound throughout the otherwise romantic landscape of majestic, pine covered mountains populated with sprinklings of traditional slope roofed, wooden homes. One imagines Korea … [Read More]
Baeja at the KCC – well worth a visit
The waistcoat show currently on at the KCC is amazing: beautiful garments, imaginatively displayed. I want them all. The exhibition is only 10 days long: get there soon. # [Read More]
Exhibition visit: Monologues at the KCC
The current exhibition at the KCC is the first to feature only paintings. All four artists, all of them female, are alumnae of the National Museum of Contemporary Arts’ artist-in-residence programme. The title of the exhibition – Monologues – is strange but apt. One hopes that an exhibition sets up a dialogue between the artist … [Read More]
2011 Travel Diary day 9: MOCA’s latest exhibitions
Myeongdong, Seoul, Sunday 8 May 2011. Whenever I travel to Korea I try to visit the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art main building in Gwacheon. This time there was an exhibition of recent additions to the permanent collection – including an imposing set of video works by Kimsooja – and a special retrospective … [Read More]
2011 Travel Diary day 2 (cont): Korean Rhapsody
Seoul, Sunday 1 May 2011. The Leeum Gallery founded by the Samsung family is always a reliable place to visit in Seoul. Even if there is not an interesting special exhibition on they have a fantastic permanent collection containing some wonderful celadon and buncheong ceramics, as well as Joseon dynasty paintings, calligraphy and Buddhist art. … [Read More]
Exhibition visit: Nam June Paik at Tate Liverpool
Korean-born artist Nam June Paik (1932-2006) is often called the father of modern video art. Think of Nam June Paik and you probably think of his massive tower of 1,003 TV sets entitled The More the Better (1988) which dominates the entrance to the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Gwacheon just outside Seoul, or … [Read More]
Exhibition visit: the 4th 4482 exhibition – Rhizosphere
The fourth 4482 group show by young Korean artists in London was bigger than ever this year – to such an extent that the organisers managed to secure some overspill gallery space on the ground floor of the OXO tower building, across the courtyard from the main Bargehouse warehouse. This overspill gallery space was very … [Read More]
Exhibition visit: Shin Meekyoung – Translation
Shin Meekyoung’s current exhibition at the Haunch of Venison must be the largest space yet occupied by a Korean in a London show. The show is a wide ranging survey of her recent work. Her medium is soap, and her sculptures are often in western classical style. She has exhibited her Roman and Greek style … [Read More]
Fun with Silla dynasty art at the London Art Fair
There was a distinctly Silla dynasty feeling to two of the stalls at the London Art Fair in January. Hur Shan’s trademark installations play with the concept of buildings in mid-construction or mid-demolition. Structural pillars are broken in two, revealing their reinforcing steel rods, and we wonder how the building remains standing. Rubble is piled … [Read More]
Independent reviews The Tiger in Asian Art
Michael Glover in the Independent reviews the excellent Asia House exhibition: The Tiger in Asian Art, http://ind.pn/eKhWGK: What intrigues most about this wonderful exhibition – and how sad that it has no catalogue, because its story is so rich and so much worth the telling – is that the tiger seldom looks really fearsome, even … [Read More]
Time and Light: Korean designers at 100% Design London
Time seemed to be one of the themes of the various Korean designers on show at the 100% Design London exhibition at Earl’s Court. Cha Il-gu graduated from London’s Royal College of Art and at last year’s show was selected as a “Next Generation Design Leader” and a “Most Promising Talent” at 100% Future. He … [Read More]
2010 Travel Diary #38: Return to Seoul
The final installments of LKL’s trip to Korea at the beginning of May Saturday 8 May 2010. We are back in Seoul in good time. At the start of the week, I hadn’t known what my Sancheong schedule was going to look like: my friend Kyung-sook had managed to secure an extra day or so … [Read More]