[Exhibition of the Week] Park Kwangsu Solo Exhibition 'Guri and Son' · Kwon Jingyu 'Sculptor's Relief' and More

Editor's NoteThis week's exhibitions introduce a variety of attractive shows from across the country that can be experienced over the course of one week.

▲Andre Butcher Solo Exhibition = The Page Gallery is hosting a solo exhibition of German artist Andre Butcher. This solo exhibition is his first in Korea and the first in Asia in three years since the 2020 show at the Yuz Museum in Shanghai. The exhibition features 15 major new works encompassing the artistic world Andre Butcher has developed over the past 30 years.

Untitled, 2022, acrylic on canvas, 194.5 × 524 cm [Photo courtesy of The Page Gallery]

Since the 1990s, the artist has built his own unique painting language by attempting to transcend the extremes of 20th-century art, politics, and society?such as life and death, industrialization, and mass consumption?through a fusion of German Expressionism and American popular culture. At the end of the 20th century, after the Cold War ended and industrialization swept through, Butcher explored new artistic possibilities by engaging with multiple generations of artists and discussing the limitations of past art movements.

As a futuristic heir to traditional German Expressionism, the artist established his own painting theory called 'Science-Fiction Expressionism.' He has faced extreme realities head-on and attempted to embrace them. In his early works, he used various references ranging from corporate logos to Disney cartoon characters to compress 20th-century cultural, political, and technological symbols into his characteristically dense pieces. These early works, completed with rough impasto techniques, can be interpreted as efforts to translate uncertain hope and desolation into unstable compositional structures and as attempts to draw out transcendental truths.

Butcher created a fictional utopian realm called NASAHEIM, expanding his attempts to reach transcendental domains such as color and light, life and death, and truth. NASAHEIM is a portmanteau of NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and Anaheim, California, where Disneyland is located. This realm exists simultaneously beyond space and deep within the inner self, where all extremes, desires, joys, and historical fears reach equality and balance. It is a key element in understanding the artist's work world.

Regarding all the works in his first solo exhibition in Korea, the artist said they are in tribute to Henri Matisse. Like Matisse's works, these pieces are filled with diverse light and color, harmonizing to reveal the artist's exploration of color, light, proportion, and the potential of painterly expression. At the boundary between abstraction and representation, he seeks balance between flat color and repetitive contrasts through Science-Fiction Expressionism, attempting the ultimate expression to fully convey light and color. The exhibition runs until December 30 at The Page Gallery, 2-gil, Seoul Forest, Seongdong-gu, Seoul.

Kwangsoo Park, Hand and Guri, 2023, Oil on canvas, 259.1x93.9cm,
[Photo courtesy of Hakgojae]

▲Kwangsoo Park Solo Exhibition 'Copper and Hand' = Hakgojae Gallery presents the solo exhibition 'Copper and Hand' by artist Kwangsoo Park. Known for densely capturing the world of forests with countless monochromatic lines, the artist began seriously painting colored landscapes in oil paint starting with his 2021 work 'Warm Making.'

As a professor at Seoul National University of Science and Technology, the artist studied oil painting to teach his students. During the drying time of the paint, he works the lines as if kneading clay in a flexible state, layering, scratching, carving out, and erasing lines to create spatial depth and flat volume within the canvas, quickly building up or breaking down lines.

Deciding the movement of color and lines as quickly and sensibly as possible before the paint dries, the artist creates new forms and spaces through the lively lines and colors in his work, accumulating the trajectories of movement on the canvas with connected points. The vivid color expression evokes images reminiscent of subjects captured by infrared cameras. Although representational painting in contemporary art, the composition sometimes recalls traditional Korean landscape painting (sansuhwa), and at times approaches a form where objects and environment merge with the protagonist, similar to William Blake's paintings.

Kwangsoo Park, Grassland, 2023, Oil on canvas, 116.8x91cm. [Photo provided by Hakgojae]

The exhibition theme may seem like an odd combination at first glance, but it is a metaphor for the origin and process of civilization. The English word 'copper' derives from the Greek 'Cyprus.' Cyprus, known as 'Kiproseu' or 'Saipureoseu' in Korean, is where civilization began around 9000 BCE and has been recognized as the cradle of human civilization trading copper products since about 2500 BCE. The artist thus says copper symbolizes the beginning of civilization.

Extracting and harmonizing the essence of Eastern and Western painting while leaping to a higher level, the artist depicts the protagonist becoming one with the forest on the canvas, and the act of extracting copper symbolizes the proper direction of civilization. The exhibition runs until December 9 at Hakgojae Gallery, Samcheong-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul.

Kwon Jin Kyu, Work, ca. 1966. [Photo by pkm Gallery]

▲Jinkyu Kwon: Sculptor’s Relief = PKM Gallery presents 'Jinkyu Kwon: Sculptor’s Relief.' The year 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the artist’s passing and the opening of the permanent exhibition 'Jinkyu Kwon’s Eternal Home' at the Seoul Museum of Art Namseoul. This meaningful year is concluded with a special exhibition focusing on Kwon’s terracotta relief works.

The artist was a pioneer of modern and contemporary Korean sculpture who sought to establish 'Korean Realism.' In his relatively short life, he developed an original sculptural language that transcended distinctions between East and West, tradition and modernity, and representation and abstraction through diverse three-dimensional works. His works, completed after passionate observation and exploration of the true structure beyond the surface of subjects, convey eternal spirituality and sublimity. Terracotta, baked clay, was an important medium for him, as it is an ancient sculptural technique that endures for thousands of years without decay and offers more artistic autonomy compared to metal works like bronze or iron.

The exhibition introduces eight terracotta relief works produced intensively in the mid-1960s. The artist began focusing on terracotta sculpture in earnest after significantly renovating the kiln at his Dongseon-dong atelier in 1964. He paid special attention to relief because many ancient sculptures from Greece, Maya, and Goguryeo were made in relief. In his terracotta relief works, he simplified natural and man-made objects structurally.

Kwon Jin Kyu, Mask, ca. 1966. [Photo by pkm Gallery]

The works exhibited in this show are a series of terracotta reliefs inspired by birds and flowers, where symbolically shaped wings and stamens metaphorically express the vitality of nature. The relief works emphasize tactile aspects of the surface through varying heights and textures, showcasing the artist’s mastery of terracotta. Starting from the past but not remaining there, the artist devoted effort to finding beauty that can continue into the future, allowing viewers to glimpse his aesthetic sensibility that transcends time and society. The exhibition runs until December 9 at PKM Gallery, Samcheong-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul.