[Exhibition of the Week] Yoonshin Kim 'Adding and Sharing, One' Exhibition · Wonwoo Lee Solo Exhibition 'Your Beautiful Future' etc.

▲ Lee Won-woo Solo Exhibition 'Your Beautiful Future' = PKM Gallery will hold the solo exhibition 'Your Beautiful Future' by artist Lee Won-woo as its first exhibition of 2023.

Wonwoo Lee: YOUR BEAUTIFUL FUTURE.
Photo by PKM Gallery

This is the first exhibition at PKM Gallery in six years since 'How's the Weather Tomorrow?' in 2017. The artist presents over 40 new sculptures combining words and materiality, along with records of performances from the past five years and a work table collecting transitional creations, offering a three-dimensional exploration of the past and present of his work.

Lee Won-woo has continuously created works that blur the boundaries between media such as installation, sculpture, performance, and video, using codes of humor and irony found in life to create light cracks in familiar realities and refresh everyday life. This exhibition embodies the artist's wish to offset the anxiety caused by an uncertain future with laughter. It momentarily paralyzes situations rushing to extremes swept away by massive trends through sudden jokes, making the audience smile unexpectedly.

Exhibition view of Lee Won-woo's solo exhibition 'Your Beautiful Future'. [Photo by PKM Gallery]

The 'Fat coke' series presented in this exhibition inflates cola cans, easily purchased nearby, like the bubbles of carbonation. Particularly, 'Fat coke (Diet)', which bears the phrase 'Diet' that deceptively suggests harmlessness to the body, provokes comedy between expansion and reduction, harmlessness and harmfulness. The 'Heavy light' series, including a heavy stone labeled 'light', a precariously standing 'balance' rock, and a 'candy' stone that seems to taste bitter, tells a paradox that laughter arises only when logic is destroyed and fails.

'If you're happy and you know it then your face will surely show it', made with wheels for mobility and aluminum material, crosses the solemn white cube with its chilly materiality. These sculptures, which the artist likens to a 'comedian', create small scratches in conventional systems and trigger intangible joyful sensations. The exhibition runs until March 25 at PKM Gallery, Samcheong-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul.

▲ Kim Yoon-shin Solo Exhibition 'Adding, Sharing, Becoming One' = The Seoul Museum of Art Namseoul will hold a solo exhibition 'Adding, Sharing, Becoming One' by first-generation female sculptor Kim Yoon-shin. The artist works by directly shaping natural materials such as wood and stone with saws to reveal the properties of the materials as much as possible.

This exhibition traces the turning points in Kim Yoon-shin's work through about 70 pieces including lithographs, stone sculptures, wood sculptures, and recent works created in Korea. The exhibition title 'Adding, Sharing, Becoming One' is a Korean interpretation of the phrase '合二合一 分二分一' (Habi Hapil Buni Buni), which the artist has consistently used as a work title since the late 1970s.

During her studies at the ?cole Nationale Sup?rieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1964, the artist transferred to the printmaking department and encountered lithography for the first time. She has developed a diverse artistic world, including attempts to print lithographs on hanji (traditional Korean paper) sent from Korea instead of typical printmaking paper. Works such as 'Premonition', selected as the best student work and featured on local TV broadcasts, can be seen in this exhibition.

The artist has been continuing her work while staying in Korea since last year. Although approaching her nineties, she still holds a saw and dedicates herself to creating art. A graduate of Hongik University’s Department of Sculpture, she led the establishment of the Korean Women Sculptors Association in 1974 with senior female sculptors and was active before moving to Argentina in 1984, where she has been based since. The exhibition runs until May 7 at the Seoul Museum of Art Namseoul, Namhyeon-dong, Gwanak-gu, Seoul.

Shin Mikyung_Peonghwa Project-Resin_2023 [Photo by Space C]

▲ Shin Mi-kyung Invitational Exhibition 'Time/Matter: The Living Museum' = The Koreana Museum of Art celebrates its 20th anniversary by hosting an invitational exhibition 'Time/Matter: The Living Museum' by internationally active sculptor Shin Mi-kyung.

This exhibition breaks down the dichotomous boundaries between contemporary and classical art, intersecting East-West and classical-modern to add new meanings. The artist’s attitude of creating something new through the translation of classics is evident throughout the exhibition space. The exhibition title 'Time' and 'Matter' are key concepts that permeate the artist’s work and the museum itself, where the museum space functions not only as a backdrop for the artworks but as a material entity and a multi-layered structure where multidimensional time and matter coexist.

Shin Mi-kyung is the first solo artist in Korea to actively intervene in four floors across both museum and art gallery spaces, presenting nearly 120 works. More than half, 70 pieces, are new works unveiled for the first time in this exhibition. Although it is her first solo exhibition in a Seoul museum in five years since the 2018 Arko Museum solo show, this exhibition is distinguished by being displayed alongside collections from the museum and the Cosmetics Museum.

Shin Mikyung_Koreana Museum of Art exhibition view. [Photo by Space C]

Since her first visit to the British Museum in London in 1996, where she was inspired by Greek classical sculptures and began her 'Translation Series', Shin Mi-kyung has spent nearly 30 years translating cultural heritage such as Western classical sculptures and Eastern ceramics into the everyday and familiar material of soap. Soap, a material that easily wears down and melts away, has long been used as the most suitable medium to express the temporality the artist explores. The process by which the temporality and functionality of an object are frozen and become artifacts within museology departs from soap’s original function, gaining authority as artworks and connecting with the artist’s exhibition world. The exhibition runs until June 10 at Space C, Eonju-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul.