Artists
Exhibition Information
Exhibition Period: April 26 – July 13, 2019 (Opening : 6pm, April 25, 2019)
Exhibition Venue: HITE Collection
Opening Hours: Monday-Saturday: 11am-6pm / Sunday, Holiday: closed
Admission free
Hosted by HITE Foundation
Supported by HITEJINRO Co.,Ltd.
SOLO is the first exhibition in 2019 held at HITE Collection and is a continuation of its annual selection for discovering and supporting young artists since 2014. This year’s exhibition introduces four artists: Jee-ook Choi, Hur Yoh, Seungwon Yang and Hojin Yun. While previous editions of young artists selection presented around ten artists each time in group exhibitions, this year’s SOLO is an anthology of four one-person shows under following specific titles: Choi’s A Flattest Layer, Hur’s Vacation Ended, Yang’s Covered Moment and Yun’s [Re]: [Re]: [Re]:.
The selection of the participating artists was made by four persons: artist duo RohwaJeong for Choi, art critic Soyeon Ahn for Hur, artist kdk Dokyun Kim for Yang and art critic Hyejin Moon for Yun. One of the most crucial criteria of the selection, as addressed each year to the jury when requesting to recommend young artists, was the ability to convey how the exhibition could reach a specific goal rather than defining the qualification of the participants. Since the 2019 edition has the character of multiple ‘solo exhibitions,’ the jury was recommended to consider the significance of the memory of the first solo exhibitions or of a solo held in the formative years of an artist. Be it artists or critics, every person in the art field has the memory of that first exhibition. Reminding themselves of their own cases, the jury rigorously suggested four artists, who either bear no experience of any solo exhibition or did have a few solos yet didn’t receive substantial attentions.
In general, a solo exhibition is created through choices and estimations made by the artists themselves. Since the four participating artists were invited unexpectedly to prepare their solos, their preparations might have been triggered rather unnaturally. However, regardless of the unanticipated timing, once they had confirmed their engagement, each exhibition making was based on condensed reflections around what and how to show off their work. Therefore, Yang proposed to unfold the story of the ambiguous border between the real and the fake through a new work that continues from his previous two solo exhibitions (2017, 2018). Yun, similarly, had two solo exhibitions (2016, 2017) where she investigated the process how images get created as well as the system that composes it. In the new exhibition, she started from the unquestioned belief that photography is always a representation of something and intends to deal with the expanded sphere of photography thorough photographic and photolike images. Choi and Hur have presented their works at group exhibitions rather than solos. To Choi especially, who has been active as commercial illustrator, exhibition making wasn’t a practice of her focus. Thus she chose to challenge the possibility how the ‘lightness’ of images that she’s been creating could be presented in the form of an exhibition. Hur presents works that observe common aspects shared between painting and sculpture as well as the relation between the act of forming and materiality. She once expressed her doubts about the tendency in Korean art scene, judging an artist’s career based on the number of held solo exhibitions. I see the point in her observation, since there should be visible range of artists in scenes abroad, who stand out in meticulously curated group exhibitions rather than pursuing numerous solo exhibitions.
The reason for HITE Collection’s decision to shape the four solo exhibitions together under the single title of SOLO is to reflect the consideration of certain tendency and method how solo exhibitions of young artists are held in the current institution of art. At present, the first exhibitions of artists in their 20s and 30s are either self-organized in terms of the curatorial, budget and a great part of its making process or supported by institutional programs. Yet in the latter case, the shows are often results of efforts consumed by administrative tasks or secondary factors rather than focusing on the work itself, so to fulfill the requirements set up by the institution. Instead of making the artists spend their energy in unimportant assignments but liberating them from the burden being in charge of the entire process as less experienced young artists,
SOLO aims to curate and realize the exhibition through close dialogues among the artists, the curator and the collaborators so that the artists can concentrate on receiving productive feedbacks regarding the content of work and the significance of each solo exhibition. By means of this process, we tried to rethink of what an institutional support should aim for. The creators today are exhausted with support programs that are dominantly formed by quantitative data that both the institution and the recipients must mutually submit. It is not rare that artists suffer from the pressure of administrative work instead of creative one. Wouldn’t it be the real function of the institution and system, to foster what an artist can do the best in the best way? Counting back from the opening date to the initial phase of the preparations, the time HITE Collection spent with four artists would amount from three to four months. Through this time, we continued experiencing ups and downs in our conversations as well as awkward and hesitant moments, solitude and thirst in transmitting what each of us was thinking. We saw discrepancies of desires for an exhibition at moments while we had the bliss of finding the mutual understandings at others. At the same time, we not only faced each other as artists and curator but also shared our time with the professionals and collaborators in exhibition making such as the jury, writers, graphic designers and constructors. Through the process of communicating with them and finding solutions, the results turned out much richer than expected. Even after the opening of this exhibition, we will invest together about two and half months of the generous exhibition period to continue projects such as the publication among other tasks. I wish that time could be fully dedicated to accomplishing what an artist would rightly prefer to focus on.
Seungwon Yang, Covered Moment
Yang presents images shot in Cheongyang over last winter. The artist accidentally found out that in a regional town located in a valley along Chilgap Mountain holds a winter season festival with ice fountains made by pouring water onto trees and letting them freeze. On the site that became a seasonal touristic attraction thanks to the local government’s promotion, the visitors get amazed by the visual spectacle and easily overlook the violence that humans employ to the nature. Yang’s photography that entirely depicts the moment astonishes even the viewers who never visited the festival site through its clarity and visual spectacle. However, as soon as one recognizes that these spectacles are results of artificial mimicry of nature by humans and the violence behind the act, the images turn grimly.
Through the past few years, Yang has dealt with the border between the real and the fake by means of photography. He suggests images that challenge the relation of real space to the fake space or the real object to the fake object so to generate the irony born from the ambiguous border between them. In doing so, he highlights the phenomenon of diluted, distorted and blurred sociocultural essence of our living spaces and lavish material condition.
Hojin Yun, [Re]: [Re]: [Re]:
In her exhibition, Yun shares the research on ‘images represented by images,’ that occupies her current work. Her interest in photography focuses on the process how an image gets created and the system composes it, especially on the state and condition where a medium produces secondary images. The exhibition title [Re]: [Re]: [Re]: implies reply, representation and reconstruction among others, repeatedly presented as titles of her exhibitions. She is interested through which methods and forms the images in front of our eyes presented as final results get materialized. Here, also the question on the ontological position of a record or representation, that have been taken as granted as the role of photography, is included. For example, the theme of the Inanimate Assembly series is about our perception of photography, that it always represents something. The series consisting of images of statues that remind of antique Greco-Roman art history books actually used the image data from the archive of the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The work unfolds the story of the original and the copy, putting the statues and photographs of them on the same line. On the other hand, Double Take, 2007 is made of the footages that the artist shot of the sunset on Santa Monica Beach. The image thoroughly transmits the light temperature. During the shooting, she witnessed that people commented saying that the spectacle presented by the nature “looked like a photo.” Yet in the exhibition, the artist projects two individual takes side by side to confuse them, as if there had been two suns on the “photolike” beach. In this way, Yun aesthetically researches to create ‘photographic image’ or ‘photolike images’ that are reconstructed by technological medium and get consumed today. Moreover, by means of media studies, she aims for a critical reception of images as well as suggesting an expanded realm of photography.
Jee-ook Choi, A Flattest Layer
Choi works as freelancer illustrator. Her images have been consumed in commercial environments such as magazines, posters promoting events and advertisements. Her illustration varies according to the request from the clients or their purposes. But in general, it unfamiliarizes the daily life or expresses unrealistic landscapes as flat surfaces, emphasizing the nuances by suggesting situations and compositions instead of adding up redundant descriptions. Even for inexplicable and complex sentiments, Choi renders them into situations. The artist often explains her flat work including illustration to be light and that she intends to continue it in a “speedy and lightweight,” “as multiple as possible” way and “not fully applying the energy.”
Through this exhibition, Choi experiments how to talk about different senses of weight within light drawings. For this, she not only applies images printed onto Post-it notes, paper rolls, postcards, fabrics and vinyl sheets but also on monitor displays and projections. The viewers could explore the exhibition in search of her drawings on yellow Post-it notes spread in the space.
Hur Yoh, Vacation Ended
Hur’s exhibition consists of Grid Series, a recent painting series and a video work to investigate common aspects shared between painting and sculpture as well as the relation between the act of forming and materiality. In the past years, Hur delved into the possibility of sculpture dormant in the form of lines and produced and recorded drawings and installations that reenacted different aspects of lines into daily life and reality. Taking the linear forms discovered in archaeological ruins as example, she commented that lines can be recognized as an indicator of human civilization. Hur also perceives the rectangle as a shape of human standard, which is one of the properties of civilization. Open Polygon, showing how the waves erase the rectangle drawn on a rock by the sea, erases the materiality of civilization expressed through standardization.
More recently, the artist moved on to painting and is testing performative elements that implode grid or cells drawn on surface. She compares her canvas work to a sculptural approach to the surface or to the attempt to discover certain silhouettes by casting the sculpture’s shadow onto the surface. At the same time, rather than concentrating on painting, the artist expands it to performative elements through folding canvas or cutting out holes from it. This act could be interpreted as an endeavor to pose the fundamental question on sculptural acts. On the other hand, Hur decided for her exhibition title alluding the plastic and psychological impressions of urban spaces of Seoul and other cities to the jammed feeling one has to confront after coming back from a holiday. Here, the artist’s insight that numerous rectangles and grids in urban spaces standardize and shape our activities and thoughts as like norms rule our lives is suggested as the ground for her practice.
관람안내
참여작가 : 양승원, 윤호진, 최지욱, 허요
전시기간 : 2019년 4월 26일 – 7월 13일 (개막행사 2019영 4월 25일 오후 6시)
관람시간: 월 – 토, 오전 11시 – 오후 6 시 (일/공휴일 휴관)
입장료: 무료
주최: 하이트문화재단
후원: 하이트진로(주)
하이트컬렉션은 2019년 첫 전시로 네 명의 젊은 작가들을 소개하는 《솔로(SOLO)》전을 개최한다. 이 전시는 하이트컬렉션이 유망 작가들을 발굴 및 지원하기 위하여 2014년부터 연례화 한 젊은 작가전의 일환으로 올해는 양승원, 윤호진, 최지욱, 허요, 네 사람의 개인전으로 구성하였다. 그 동안 하이트컬렉션이 개최해온 젊은 작가전이 하나의 전시 타이틀 아래 열 명 내외의 작가들을 군집시킨 그룹전의 성격을 띠었다면, 올해 《솔로》전은 네 편의 개인전으로 구성된 옴니버스 전시 형식을 표방하며 전시마다 작가의 작업에 맞춰서 독립된 제목을 갖는다. 각각의 개인전 제목은 다음과 같다. 양승원의 《커버드 모멘트(Covered Moment)》, 윤호진의 《[Re]: [Re]: [Re]:》, 최지욱의 《수면의 레이어(A Flattest Layer)》, 허요의 《길 수 없는 휴가(Vacation Ended)》.
네 작가의 개인전을 전체적으로 엮는 타이틀을 《솔로》라고 명명한 이유는 현재의 미술 제도 내에서 젊은 작가들의 개인전이 치러지는 경향과 방식에 대한 고민을 담기 위해서다. 현재 20-30대 젊은 작가들이 활동 시작기에 열게 되는 개인전은 전시 기획과 비용 및 과정의 대부분을 스스로 해결한 셀프 전시거나, 기관의 지원금 제도로부터 도움을 받지만 기관의 요구 조건을 충족시키느라 작업 자체에 집중하기보다는 행정업무나 부수적인 일에 에너지를 소모해버리며 이뤄지곤 한다. 하이트컬렉션의 《솔로》전은 전시 경험이 많지 않은 젊은 작가가 혼자서 전시의 모든 것을 감당하거나, 작업 외 부수적인 일에 에너지를 소모하는 것이 아니라, 기획자 및 조력자들과의 긴밀한 대화를 통해서 전시를 기획, 진행하고, 작가들이 작업 내용과 개인전의 의의에 대해 생산적인 피드백을 받는 것을 추구한다.
양승원, 《커버드 모멘트(Covered Moment)》
양승원의 《커버드 모멘트(Covered Moment)》는 작가가 지난 겨울 충남 청양에서 촬영한 이미지들을 선보인다. 작가는 우연히 칠갑산 계곡 자락에 위치한 지역 마을에서 동빙기에 나무에 물을 뿌리고 얼려서 얼음 분수 축제를 개최한다는 소식을 듣게 되었다. 지자체의 홍보로 한 철 관광 코스가 된 현장에서 사람들은 시각적인 장관에 매료되고, 인간이 자연에 가하는 폭력을 간과하게 된다. 이를 고스란히 담아온 양승원의 사진은 현장 방문을 하지 않은 사람들조차 이미지가 주는 청명함과 시각적인 장관에 먼저 감탄하게 한다. 그러나 이 광경들이 인간이 인위적으로 자연을 흉내 낸 것이고 그 행위가 가학적인 것임을 알게 된 순간, 이미지들은 서늘하게 다가온다.
최근 몇 년 간 양승원은 사진을 통해 실재(real)와 모조(fake)의 경계를 다뤄왔다. 그는 실재 공간–모조 공간 또는 실재 오브제–모조 오브제의 관계를 고민하게 하는 이미지를 제시하여 실재와 모조의 모호한 경계에서 아이러니를 느끼게 만들곤 한다. 그럼으로써 오늘날 우리가 사는 장소와 누리고 있는 물질의 사회문화적인 본질이 희석되고 왜곡되어 모호해지는 현상에 대해 지적하고자 한다.
윤호진, 《[Re]: [Re]: [Re]:》
윤호진은 자신의 최근 작업 주제인 ‘이미지가 재현한 이미지’에 대한 탐구를 전시로 보인다. 그의 사진에 대한 관심사는 이미지가 만들어지는 과정과 이를 구성하는 시스템에 대한 것이다. 특히 미디엄이 이차적인 이미지를 생산하는 상태와 조건에 대해서 탐구한다. 전시 제목 《[Re]: [Re]: [Re]:》는 응답(reply), 표현(representation), 재현(reconstruction) 등의 뜻을 내포하는 것으로써 작가가 반복해서 사용해온 제목이다. 그는 최종 결과물로서 우리 눈 앞에 놓인 이미지가 어떤 방식과 형태로 물질화 되었는지에 관심을 두는데, 이때 사진의 역할로서 당연하게 여겨온 기록이나 재현과 같은 존재론적 지위에 대한 질문도 포함한다. 예컨대 Inanimate Assembly 시리즈는 사진이 무언가를 재현한다고 당연시 여기는 우리의 인식을 작업의 주제로 삼았다. 고대 그리스 로마 미술사 서적에서 볼 법한 조각 이미지로 구성된 이 시리즈는 뉴욕 메트로폴리탄 미술관의 소장품 아카이브 이미지 데이터를 이용하여 작업한 것으로 조각과 사진을 동일 선상에 두고 원본과 복제에 대한 이야기를 던진다. 한편, Double Take_Light temperature, 2007 는 작가가 산타모니카 해변의 석양을 촬영한 것으로 빛온도가 고스란히 전해지는 이미지다. 촬영 당시 작가는 자연이 보여준 멋진 광경에 사람들이 ‘사진 같다’고 감탄하는 것을 목격했다. 그러나 작가는 두 번의 테이크를 나란히 투사하여 ‘사진 같은’ 해변에 마친 두 개의 태양이 있었던 것처럼 이미지를 교란시킨다. 이처럼 윤호진은 오늘날 기술 매체로 재현되어 소비되는 ‘사진적 이미지‘ 또는 ‘사진 같은 이미지’를 미학적으로 리서치 하며 창작하고자 한다. 또한 미디엄 연구를 통해서 이미지가 비판적으로 수용되기를 바라며 확장된 사진의 영역을 제시하고자 한다.
최지욱, 《수면의 레이어(A Flattest Layer)》
프리랜서 일러스트레이터로 활동하는 최지욱이 만든 이미지들은 주로 잡지 지면이나 행사 포스터, 광고 등 상적 환경에서 소비되어 왔다. 그의 일러스트레이션은 용도나 클라이언트의 요청에 따라 다양하게 전개되지만, 대체로 일상을 낯설게 묘사하거나 비현실적 풍경을 납작한 평면으로 표현하고, 대상에 대해 장황한 설명 대신 상황과 구도를 이용하여 뉘앙스를 표현해 왔다. 또한 설명하기 어려운 복잡한 감정이더라도 상황을 만들어 표현하곤 했다. 작가는 일러스트레이션 등 본인의 평면 작업을 가볍다고 표현하는데, ‘빠르고 가벼운, 가능한 많이’, ‘온 힘을 다하지 않고’ 작업하겠다고 말한다.
이번 전시를 통해서 최지욱은 가벼운 그림들 안에서의 다양한 무게를 어떻게 이야기할 수 있는지 실험하고자 한다. 이를 위해 작가는 포스트잇, 롤페이퍼, 엽서, 천, 비닐 등에 인쇄한 이미지뿐만 아니라 티비와 빔 프로젝션도 활용한다. 관람자들은 전시장 곳곳에 부착되어 있는 노란 포스트잇에 그린 드로잉을 찾아 보는 재미가 있을 것이다.
허요, 《길 수 없는 휴가(Vacation Ended)》
《길 수 없는 휴가(Vacation Ended)》는 최근 허요가 진행 중인 회화 작업 <그리드 시리즈> 및 설치, 영상 작업을 전시하여, 회화-조각의 접점, 조형적 행위와 물질성의 관계를 살펴 보고자 한다. 지난 몇 년 간 허요는 ‘선(line)’의 형태가 가진 조각적 가능성을 탐구하며 선의 다양한 모습을 일상과 현실에 구현하는 드로잉과 설치 작업을 하고 기록해왔다. 그는 고고학적 유적에서 발견되는 선적인 형상을 예로 들면서, 선을 인간과 문명의 지표로 인식 가능함을 언급하였다. 또한 사각형을 인간 문명의 한 속성인 규범의 형상으로 인식한다. 바닷가 돌 위에 그린 사각형을 파도가 지우는 모습을 보여주는 <열린 도형>은 규범이라고 하는 문명의 물질성을 지워내는 작업이다.
최근 작가는 회화 작업으로 옮겨와, 평면 위에 그리드나 셀을 그리고 여기에 어떤 파열음을 내는 행위적 요소를 실험하는 중이다. 작가는 자신의 캔버스 작업을, 평면에 대한 조각적 접근 또는 평면에 조각을 비추어 어떤 실루엣을 보려는 시도라고 비유한다. 또한 작가는 회화에 천착하기보다는 캔버스를 접거나 패널에 구멍을 뚫는 등 행위적 요소로 확장하는데 이는 조각적 행위에 대한 근본적인 물음을 던지는 시도로 볼 수 있다. 한 편, 허요는 서울 등 도시 공간에서 받은 조형적, 심리적 인상을 휴가에서 돌아와서의 답답함에 비유하며 제목을 결정하였다. 여기에는 도시 공간의 수많은 사각형과 그리드가 우리 삶의 규율이자 규범처럼 활동과 생각을 규격화하고 재단한다는 작가의 생각이 깔려 있다.
HITE Collection 