[Exhibitions of the Week] Lee Ufan Solo Exhibition & Park Jonggyu Solo Exhibition 'Ghosts of the Era and the Era of Ghosts' etc.

▲Jongkyu Park Solo Exhibition 'Ghosts of the Era and the Era of Ghosts' = Hakgojae is hosting a solo exhibition by artist Jongkyu Park titled 'Ghosts of the Era and the Era of Ghosts' until the 29th.

Jonggyu Park 'Vertical Time (2023)'
[Photo provided by Hakgojae]

Noise, commonly translated as 잡음 and usually carrying a negative connotation, is used by the artist to convey a message of new discovery through orderly arranged noise. The artist describes noise as "a beautiful form, contrary to its negative value," and points out that it shows that computers are not flawless, meaning "humanism is still alive."

In this exhibition, the artist presents 40 works including paintings, videos, and sculptures expressing the world of noise. Using irregular canvases rather than perfect squares or rectangles, the flat works appear three-dimensional depending on the angle, attracting attention. The highlight of the exhibition is the 'Vertical Time' series, where noise appearing on computer screens is captured and elongated to transform its form on the canvas. The artist printed the complex shapes of noise onto adhesive sheets, attached them to the canvas, painted over them, and then peeled off the sheets to fill the canvas with the smooth lines of noise.

Jonggyu Park, Vertical Time, 2023, Acrylic on canvas
[Photo courtesy of Hakgojae]

A pink work inspired by sandstorms blowing in the desert also captivates viewers. Originally created as a video, it was screened on a billboard in Daegu’s Dongseong-ro in February last year. When a machine error caused the screen to be covered in pink noise, the artist transferred that image directly onto the canvas. The artist reflects, "I thought about how the moment I choose, it is not noise, but if I do not choose, it becomes noise," and questions whether we can clearly judge truth and falsehood in various issues such as politics and society as much as we know them. In an era where artificial intelligence (AI), led by ChatGPT, threatens human domains, the artist emphasizes that ultimately, humans must be the subjects who judge noise and the meaning of things. The exhibition runs until the 29th at Hakgojae, Sogyeok-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul.

Jeong Mi-hye_I Become a Flower [Photo provided by Unhyeongung Special Exhibition Hall]

▲Mihye Jeong Solo Exhibition 'Minhwa, Standing in the Garden' = Korean painter Mihye Jeong’s solo exhibition is ongoing until the 17th at the Unhyeongung Planning Exhibition Hall. Under the theme 'Minhwa, Standing in the Garden,' the exhibition brings together the artist’s contest-winning works, group exhibition pieces, and new works such as 'Father’s Garden,' presenting her artistic chronology in one place.

The artist has continued traditional minhwa painting while running an art academy and producing works for many years. Recently, as a full-time artist, she has expanded from traditional minhwa to creative minhwa by painting furniture and accessories she used while raising her children, as well as items imbued with the nostalgia of her mother and grandmother. She is particularly focused on exploring the roles of mothers and grandmothers as women, embodying in her works the delicacy and pursuit of beauty that had to be sacrificed while living as a mother.

Her recent works place these women in a space called the 'garden,' filled with flowers, expressing a surreal atmosphere and vitality. Inspired by the large garden of her childhood home, the garden represents a space where the artist’s sisters and parents breathed together and holds childhood memories. It offers viewers the vitality inherent in the garden itself along with memories of flowers and gardens from that time.

This exhibition expands the artist’s world with traditional minhwa works alongside colorful flowers and various women depicted in traditional minhwa, creative minhwa, and Korean painting styles suitable for spring. The exhibition runs until the 17th at the Unhyeongung Planning Exhibition Hall, Unni-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul.

Lee Ufan, Drawing for 'Relatum ? Dialogue' [Photo by Kukje Gallery]

▲Ufan Lee Solo Exhibition 'Lee Ufan' = "My work is extremely simple but possesses a unique physicality. It is neither the object itself nor the information itself, but an open door that allows seeing both sides, that is, a relational point. In other words, the artwork is the place where I and the other, inside and outside, meet, and this presents a new reality."

International Gallery is holding a solo exhibition of Ufan Lee until May 28. This is his second exhibition at International Gallery since 2009 and the first solo exhibition for domestic audiences in 12 years, excluding the establishment of the 'Lee Ufan Space' at Busan Museum of Art in 2015. The exhibition features six sculptures and four drawings spanning from Lee’s 1980s works to recent pieces. Dominating the main stage of the exhibition are his sculptures, which continue the 'Relatum' series first created in 1968?the same year he moved to Japan and began leading the avant-garde Mono-ha movement.

The artist begins from nothingness (mu) to create expressions as representations of himself, showing works as fragments of phenomena intertwined with reality rather than objectifying them. He creates works as expressions open to exchange with the other or the world. To ensure his works constantly relate to reality or everyday life, he produces minimal and restrained metaphors in neutral, anonymous spaces like the white cube of galleries.

Installation view of Lee Ufan solo exhibition at Kukje Gallery
? Ufan Lee / ADAGP, Paris - SACK, Seoul, 2023 [Photo by Kukje Gallery]

He titles all his sculptures 'Relatum' and often adds subtitles, which serve only to aid association without allowing fixed interpretation. Choosing 'Relatum,' meaning the subject engaged in a relationship rather than the definable 'relationship,' reflects his intention to place individual elements of the work in fluid relationships with ever-changing contexts. The audience, who directly intervenes in the artwork space as a 'relatum' along with elements like stones symbolizing nature and steel plates representing industrial society, feels as if participating in a dialogue between two objects or meditates on the silent conversation, contemplating the co-presence of self and other.

"Stone is a lump of time. It is older than the Earth. Steel plates are extracted from stone. So stone and steel plates are like siblings. My work’s concept is to hint at the future through the meeting of stone and steel plates, the dialogue between civilization and nature." Reflecting on the artist’s view of the coexistence of these two elements, the work contains voids, resonance, and energy generated by mutual collision. The artist brings the variable world of communication between inside and outside?‘infinity’?into his work, offering viewers his unique artistic world that is both a grand narrative and a theory itself. The exhibition runs until May 28 at International Gallery, Samcheong-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul.