The Daegu Gansong Museum of Art presents the exhibition "Painting Class" in commemoration of the 240th anniversary of late Joseon academic and artistic master, the monk Chusa (Kim Jung-Hee). Living between 1786-1856, he was one of the greatest intellectuals of his time who integrated science and art in his works. He is considered to have been a cultural icon of his time whose influence extended beyond Korea.
Sculptor Kim Young-Won's "Beyond Form, Into Resonance" explores the intersection of fixed material forms and the ever-flowing life force Qi. In his latest show, he tries to marry the solidity of matter (sculpture) with the fluidity and ambiguity of motion. In a way, he is also trying to merge matter with spirit to breathe new life into the art of sculpture. The concept of void or emptiness is central to Eastern spirituality and integral part of monochrome ink paintings - but if that same concept, if that same conversation was to be transferred from ink paintings to sculpture - what would that artwork look like?
An So-Hyun's "Pure Breath" explores the complexities of life which unfold like a complex pattern from our very first "pure breath". In a sense, "breath" can be a reference to the aforementioned Qi life force too. An, too, is trying to capture the essence of life, the core, the seed, the very beginning, the fundament. As humans, we wear so many hats, have so many roles - some permanent, some temporary. Every role adds to the complexity of our personalities and if you ask yourself where it all began - it is that pure breath. Her artworks feature nature - the thing/place we all seem to return to when we need clarity, when we need to "go back to the basics" or to go back to ourselves.
Chungbuk Cultural Foundation presents "A Thousand Feelings, Ten Thousand Expressions", a group exhibition featuring 9 artists from the region whose works explore suppressed emotions. The exhibition is participatory and invites viewers to explore the entirety of their emotional spectrum. The show is hosted at the "bunker of Dangsan Thought", a former military facility with a dark history.
In "Ctrl+Alt+Del", artist Yoon Na explores the relationship between intelligent systems (AI) and humans. The title “Ctrl+Alt+Del” is a reference to the hotkey combination which instructs DOS operating system to reboot. Back in the early days of personal computing, the distance between the human and the machine was much more noticeable while now, with the advancement of technology, AI has become almost a part of us. In simple terms, back in the day, you needed IT knowledge to be able to command machines, now, all you need is to tap here and there and the instructions are given. This shift brings with it a shortening of the distance between AI and humans to the point of merger. The exhibition invites us to reflect on this change and its consequences.
Artist Lee Man-Soo draws our attention to the points of bifurcation - the sunrise/sunset line where a day turns into a night and vice-versa. This line is the intersection of polarities - when, how and why does white turn into black, happiness into sadness, hope into despair? And speaking of polarities - can the world be seen in the terms of gradation, a process of constant shifting between two extreme states? This rhythm of existence is captured on the canvas by repetitive layering and scrapping of the paint - a reference to the cycles of existence.
Lee Eun-Kyung's "Layers of Vitality" explores the point where a sensation is most densely condensed, an emotion is most intense, a colour is most vivid. In a larger sense, Lee invites us to think about those moments in life when we reach a point of truth, when we realise something that up until then had only been hovering under the surface of our consciousness. These moments of clarity stand out in our memories like mountain peaks - turning points in our understanding of who we are and where we are meant to go from here. The thickness of the paint adds to that story a sense of time passed, labour, lived experiences, accumulation and culmination.
"En attendant: Waiting" by Lee Bae explores the process of waiting not as an annoying delay but as an act of creation in its own right. A time needed for the necessary conditions to come together so that change can take place. Thus, waiting is not time wasted but rather a time for preparation of the change; an essential part of the cooking process. Waiting is inevitably connected to the overarching concept of time and the passage of it. Present within time are the principles of the creation, disappearance, and circulation. The artist has used primarily charcoal to convey the sense of fire burning and something slowly coming to burn and burn out.