ART INTERNATIONAL ZURICH 2008

Young art from Korea
GALLERY HARI, SEOUL

The Korean Young Artists

By Young Jay Lee

Gallery Hari is pleased to introduce the Korean young artists. In several ways, the Korean Young artists is said to be different from their predecessors. They have been getting along with the development of the Internet and democratization in Korea. So they are living in more information-intensified and more democratic environment.
Unlike their predecessors who in the one line tried to keep up with the Western art style so as to overcome an insularity of the previous Korean art, and in the other line initiated a social realistic movement in the name of 'minjungmisul' to struggle against the former authoritarian regime, the young Korean artists do not show much interest in such grand discourses. They are rather said to move just in individualistic way. Because of that, they show more diverse and more complex styles to make it more difficult to categorize them.
On the other hand, the young Korean artists seem to be more outbound than their predecessors. Lots of young artistes have had exhibitions in galleries, art fairs or in auction houses in many countries. This is due both to the inner and the outer factors. From within, the scope of Korean economy has been expanding. From outside, the recent takeoff of Chinese avant-garde has made the art world keep focus on the East Asian Arts.
It may still be early to define the young Korean artists. Even so, it seems certain that this new generation has much more possibilities than the previous ones due to the new environments favorite to them. In view of this, Gallery Hari has mainly prepared to illuminate the young Korean artists this year. Some of the artists are featured as the following:

Kim Young Ju, in her recent 'myth' series works, focuses on the symbolism of the deer, through which she refers to the original life that has been hidden in the deep of the sub-consciousness of the people today. Her 'myth' series have been followed just right after her 'self-portrait of civilization' where she cast a critical eye over modern civilization where power supersedes justice and love.

Yang Tae-Mo metamorphoses nature into his own unique semiology. Nameless weeds and wild flowers, the seeds blown in the wind, and the air that holds them are all metamorphosed into a symbolical art language. So all those in nature are now transformed into semiology and the artist treats the semiology carefully in diverse directions.

Lee Dong Seok shows very distorted and monstrous shapes, visionary icons obsessed with paranoia through which he throws a message of the age of anxiety, a criticism and a cynicism towards new contradictions in society, etc. The artist reconstructs the realities coming from various ideologies into fragments in life or in a phenomenon. Sometimes the artist himself also shows up on the pictorial space as the third person.

Lee Sook is a very interesting artist. The artist's recent works remind us of women's labia. They may be categorized in a kind of eroticism. But what she captures on is in the radical state of eroticism. The labia shapes are just as they are originally seen before being explained holy or voluptuous. These adjectives are only attached later by the way we approach to it. The artist just reveals the radical state of eroticism before the adjectives are added up.

Lee Hyun Young's works look as if the clouds floating on the extensive earth or an endless continuation of the mountains or the cliffs of the extensive fault planes. But the images are just the result of the improvisation as the artist doodles along with the moment toties quoties on paper. Even the artist herself does not know what the final shape will be. It is something like an adventure where anxiety and expectation or joy and disappointment intersect. In view of the process, it is totally the opposite of traditional figurative paintings.

Jeong Hyang's works touch our emotion with harmonious stunning colors and exquisite compositions. The colors that she uses are elegant and warm and peaceful. They are close to primary colors, but not as strong as them. The colors combine with adroit compositions with mysterious lines and planes that demolish the border between the abstract and the figurative. Her works give us a certain mental energy in their warm atmosphere.

Artists in Show 2008

• Baik Jung Gi
• Han Kyoung Za
• Jeong Hyang
• Kim Mi Sook
• Kim Young Ju
• Lee Byung Wook
• Lee Dong Seok
• Lee Hyun Young
• Lee Sook, Lim Young-Jo
• Park Eun Sook
• Park Ki Hoon
• Sohn Jeong-Sook
• Seong Young-Mi
• Seo Young
• Sordi Alberto
• Yang Nam-Ja
• Yang Tae Mo

Copyright: Gallery Hari, South Korea 2008