Hyunjhin Baik in Dart International Magazine
Arario Gallery’s one-person show of the multi-talented Hyunjhin Baik was the most well thought out gallery exhibit I saw in Seoul. This musician/ visual artist not only espouses a strange narrative – he also challenges the gallery visitor to reconsider the exhibition experience. Using low-light florescent tubes and constructed corridor-like spaces that in one instance comes to a pointed end – Baik offers a new and more intimate and cool way to experience art. His painting style and iconography are equally diverse and multifaceted – which to me – indicates this artist lets his freak flag fly, leaving little left unexplored. For what I saw while in Seoul, Baik is Korea’s most brilliant artist.
Read the rest here.
Osang Gwon in Environmental Graffiti
A photograph is flat, isn’t it? Think again when you view the following life-size photo statues. In the capable hands of Korean sculptor Osang Gwon, hundreds of photographs become a life-size copy of the original, turning reality a bit on its head. People, horses, cars and bags suddenly take on a life of their own. If you missed Osang Gwon’s recent New York exhibition, here’s a cross-section of his work.
Read the rest here.
Arario’s Finest in The Korea Times
To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Arario Gallery is holding an exhibition featuring works by top international artists, Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Damien Hirst, Marc Quinn, Neo Rauch, Sigmar Polke and Tracey Emin.
“Arario’s Finest: 20th year Anniversary Exhibition” is being held simultaneously at Arario Gallery in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, and in Seoul, through January.
Arario Gallery owner Kim Chang-il decided to show off some prized pieces from his extensive art collection for the special anniversary exhibition. In a meeting with reporters at the gallery Friday, Kim recalled how he started his collection, which includes some famous works by Young British Artists (YBAs) and Young German Artists.
Read the rest here.
Arario Korea’s exhibition in The Korea Herald
Arario Gallery is showcasing its collections under the title “Arario’s Finest” to commemorate its 20th anniversary.
The show is notable because the gallery’s collections are in fact those of Kim Chang-il, president of the Gallery, who is considered one of the world’s top 100 collectors.
Kim was the first Korean ever to make the list of the world’s 100 most powerful collectors, as selected by British magazine Art Review. He is also an artist himself who goes by the name “Ci Kim,” although his work is not as well known as his collections.
This show stages about 35 pieces from Kim’s collections by world-renowned artists like Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Keith Haring, Marc Quinn, Neo Rauch and Tracey Emin.
Read the rest here.
20th Year Anniversary Exhibition at Arario Korea
Sigmar Polke | Fastest Gun in the West | 2002 | mixed media on fabric | 302 x 503 cm
November 10th – January 24th, 2010
Arario Gallery celebrates its 20th year anniversary since its inauguration in 1989. The upcoming exhibition will show works of artists that have worked with Arario during the past 20 years, as well as our private collections never revealed to the public before. Included in the show are Marc Quinn’s Self (2001), Neo Rauch’s large oil paintings, and Sigmar Polke’s The Fastest Gun in the West (2002), all of which are some of Mr. Ci Kim’s beloved pieces. Mr. Kim is the owner of Arario Gallery, included in international art magazines such as Monopol of Germany, Art Review of London, and Art News of New York as one of the most powerful and influential figures in global art world, almost every year from 2004 to 2009 as the only Korean figure.
From 1989 to 2000, Ci Kim poured great energy into creating a sculpture park (Arario Small City) in the area around a bus terminal, a department store, and a movie theater which he runs in Cheonan, city located one hour from Seoul. To distinguish his business from all other terminals and department stores and to raise cultural awareness for the citizens, Kim allocated significant sculpture works of Damien Hirst, Wang Guangyi, Keith Haring, Isamu Noguchi, and Robert Indiana, just to name a few. In 2000, he took down the original building for the gallery and expanded the exhibition space to 32,024.7ft², making it one of the nation’s largest galleries. Kim successfully launched the new space with Keith Haring and Anselm Kiefer’s large scale exhibitions and continued to introduce yBa artists such as Damien Hirst, Mark Quinn, and Tracey Emin, as well as yGa artists such as Sigmar Polke and Neo Rauch through important group shows <British Contemporary> and <Artists from Leipzig>. The gallery and the park together continue to cater to the needs of Korea’s art audiences with important local and international exhibitions, while promoting young and bourgeoning Korean artists to the world through three other Arario galleries located in Seoul, Beijing and New York.
Arario Gallery Seoul will show approximately 15 artworks including works by Neo Rauch, Andy Warhol, Tracey Emin, and Markus Lupertz. Arario Gallery Cheonan will show approximately 20 artworks including works by Marc Quinn, Damien Hirst, Sigmar Polke, Jitish Kallat, and Keith Haring. Arario Gallery’s 20th Anniversary collections show will provide the audience with a wonderful opportunity to enjoy great masterpieces of this century, and to physically experience the passion that ran through and supported Arario Gallery to establish its global position in the art world today.
Yue Minjun at Arario New York
Arario Gallery New York is proud to present an exhibition of works by renowned artist Yue Minjun.
The exhibition will be on view from October 29 through January 16, 2010. A reception will be held at the gallery on October 29 from 6-8 pm.
The exhibition of a new set of 28 original prints will be shown for the first time.
These prints beautifully illustrate the iconic laughing face and figure of the artist as seen manifested in various states of solitary play and fantastical camaraderie. Yue Minjun’s joyful, smiling figures offer an ironic commentary on the concept of personal freedom and happiness in modern Chinese society. The set of prints will be accompanied by the sculptures as well as paintings.
Yue Minjun (born 1962 in Daqing, Heilongjiang Province) is one of China’s leading contemporary artists working today, and one of the key figures in the Cynical Realism movement, which emerged in response to the Tiananmen Square incident of June 1989. His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia, and his oil paintings have set records at auction.
Yue Minjun studied oil painting at Hebei Normal University, graduating in 1985. Yue was part of the artistic community at Yuan Ming Yuan-northwest of Beijing where radical ideas for the future of China and its art were exchanged. A government-enacted crackdown, known as the 1996 “Yuanmingyuan Incident,” dissolved the community, which, ironically, led the artists to develop a greater individuality in artistic thought and style. Coinciding with these developments was a gradual, but massive expansion in economic growth and the availability of western media and products. Yue Minjun’s works draw from this unique Chinese experience, at a time when socialist and capitalist ideologies intermingle and collide with notions of individual rights and free expression.
His first U.S. retrospective was presented at the Queens Museum of Art in New York in 2007.
Yue Minjun lives and works in Beijing.
Osang Gwon interview with Artkrush
Artkrush, the bi-monthly arts newsletter, recently interviewed artist Osang Gwon in response to the show at Arario New York. An excerpt from the article:
I’m commenting on contemporary society, which is filtered through the advertisements of today. My Flat series uses products, such as watches, make-up, and jewelry, that are cut out of magazines, set up with a small wire, and photographed as a massive installation. I see the process as sculptural. There is a play between the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional in both bodies of work.
Read the full article here.
Osang Gwon at Arario New York
From September 10th thru October 24th Arario New York held a solo exhibition of Korean artist Osang Gwon.
Osang Gwon developed and introduced his unique style of photo-sculpture while studying at Hong-Ilk University in Seoul, Korea. Called Deodorant Types, these life-size figures are pink foam shapes that have been covered with thousands of color photographs; Gwon meticulously shoots every inch of his sitter’s clothing, skin and hair while also paying close attention to their facial expressions and postures. The artist primarily depicts the inhabitants of Seoul (where he continues to reside), raising issues of identity that are fundamentally tied to place.
In the space of the exhibition, Deodorant Types form a peculiar landscape of vertical bodies, crouching and prostrate figures, some of which are placed directly on the floor and others atop pedestals—together they create new discourse and, as curator Eric C. Shiner states, forces us to “question the skin we are in.” For Gwon’s 2007 solo exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery, he extended his practice to the United Kingdom by living, working and interacting with the residents of Manchester for a month. The resulting installation was a glossy multi-race mix of figures, some of which will be on view at Arario New York. It was around the time of this residency in Europe that Gwon was selected by the British piano rock band Keane to develop the artwork for their sophomore album, Perfect Symmetry—Gwon began by creating each band member as a Deodorant Type. This commission is one of the artist’s most visible projects thus far.
Gwon’s newest works include a photo-sculpture of the famous Korean fashion model Daul Kim; and his largest Deodorant Type to date that stands at more than 8 feet tall. A few works from Gwon’s Flat series will also be on view. These large-format photographs—chock full of brand name and logo cut-outs from magazines—speak to the saturation of consumerism, especially prevalent in big cities. The Flat Series imparts an image of Seoul that is at once local and global, specific and broad.
Fang Lijun Retrospective in Germany
Fang Lijun, "1993.1", 1993. Acrylic on canvas, 180 x 230 cm. Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong.
From August 30 through November 8, 2009, the Kunsthalle Bielefeld in Germany will present a retrospective exhibition of nearly 50 paintings and sculptures by Arario artist Fang Lijun. Titled Sea and Sky, the show includes some of the artist’s earliest and best-known paintings, as well as new compositions that debuted in New York last year. Read more about Fang Lijun’s retrospective at Artdaily.org.
Fang Lijun’s work is featured in the new publication, New China, New Art, by art critic Richard Vine. Read Robert Morgan’s review of the book in the current issue of the Brooklyn Rail.
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