2014 Invitation to Abstraction

Invitation to Abstraction

In the visual arts, as in other artistic disciplines, artists have continually sought to fold their inner feelings and emotions into their work, directly or indirectly. Through this exhibition, we hope to present the crystallized, experiential perception distilled in the work of ten different artists in an accessible, approachable way, and to open a space for dialogue with viewers.

Daeho Kook, who has traveled through Paris, New York, Rome, and many other cities capturing fleeting impressions on canvas with an artist's discerning eye, is known for his City series as well as his Jelly Beans series, which reflects a relentless exploration of color, and his Birch series, whose rough brushwork conveys the raw texture of tree branches. This exhibition presents the Jelly Beans series: through the sweet, dreamlike form of jelly beans, the artist gives shape to a distinct emotional world of his own.

Kim Jongku, who pioneered a new genre using iron filings as material, works across multiple media. Rather than centering a single medium, he lets every medium relate to and complete the others. The artist first grinds a large block of iron with a grinder over an extended period, then uses the resulting iron filings to write calligraphy on the floor. The calligraphy and landscape paintings he creates are captured by a camera installed on the floor and projected onto a screen, and the resulting video installation reveals a landscape unfolding horizontally.

Working from the square, a simple geometric form, Sung-pil Lim builds a body of work that is at once orderly and abstract, freely expressing on canvas what cannot otherwise find words, and seeking to carry his own way of living out into the space of the world.

Sung-hee Shin breathes life into dormant canvases. Using her own technique, "Nouage" (a French word for knotting), she cuts, pulls, and ties the canvas into knots — a process that organically links the space between artist and canvas, and even the canvas to the space beyond it, giving rise to an entirely new material presence.

Myung-sik Cho translates images charged with sensibility, memory, and experience into form, and his work carries real passion. As if conscious of painting's many possible modes of being, he moves repeatedly between recording and dismantling, quotation and variation, presenting his own world of experience as art.

The exhibition also brings together work by Yong-guk Byun, Dong-youb Lee, Lee Ufan, Brad Howe, and Jean Marie Haessle, among other artists. We hope this exhibition offers an occasion to set aside the assumption that abstract art is vaguely difficult and ambiguous, and instead to listen to what the works themselves have to say.

- **Participating artists** — Daeho Kook, Jong-gu Kim, Sung-pil Lim, Sung-hee Shin, Myung-sik Cho, Dong-youb Lee, Lee Ufan, Yong-guk Byun, Brad Howe, Jean Marie Haessle