Kukje Gallery will participate in the 9th edition of Art Basel Hong Kong at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC) from May 22 through May 23, 2021. At the onset of the pandemic last year, Art Basel had responded by launching an innovative series of Online Viewing Rooms. Expanding upon this endeavor to search for the ultimate art viewing experience that will balance safety and in-person communication, this year’s Art Basel Hong Kong will mark the first launch of a hybrid format integrating both physical and virtual platforms. The upcoming iteration of the in-person fair will feature 104 exhibitors participating in the Galleries, Insights, and Discoveries sectors, while the online portion of the event titled ‘Art Basel Live: Hong Kong’ will run concurrently alongside the fair and include Online Viewing Rooms, a live broadcast of the physical fair, and virtual walkthroughs for VIPs. This new concept, dubbed “satellite booths,” allows each exhibitor to present their own curated exhibition within a standalone booth that will be staffed by a local representative appointed by Art Basel. “We are delighted that we are able to introduce new models that support our galleries, from the satellite booths to the expansion of our digital offerings as a way to amplify the international reach of our galleries with ‘Art Basel Live: Hong Kong,’” said Adeline Ooi, Asia Director of Art Basel Hong Kong.

For the physical portion of the fair, Kukje Gallery will present a solo booth featuring a selection of works by Lee Ufan, a pivotal figure in the Korean Dansaekhwa. Installed in the center of the booth is the major sculpture Relatum – Seem (2009). Relatum (an overarching title for all of Lee’s sculpture) is a philosophical term denoting things or events between which a relation exists. The title conveys Lee’s radical approach to his artwork, not as an object, but as a network of relationships. Relatum – Seem shifts the artistic experience to an act of encounter, an occasion that unfolds around the viewer in a particular time and space. The work in the booth consists of a canvas and a stone installed in a dimly lit environment that echoes the emptiness and stillness seen in Lee’s signature paintings. The stone acts as a brush, marking place in a dynamic interplay with the surrounding space. Lee’s philosophy rejects permanent monuments, seeking rather to open up spaces for engagement through minimal intervention based on his disciplined act of selecting and arranging. Displayed alongside the sculpture are paintings from two of Lee’s painting series: From Line 80026 (1980), in which the artist makes a series of repetitive actions, drawing a single line or point over and over again until the pigment is exhausted in each stroke; and Dialogue (2020), a work from Lee’s recent eponymous series which evokes a generative emptiness by featuring a limited number of broad brushstrokes on a white background. 

The three iconic works by Lee Ufan will be showcased alongside those by the artist’s contemporaries Park Seo-Bo and Ha Chong-Hyun for Art Basel’s Online Viewing Rooms, available for access throughout the duration of the physical fair. Highlights include Park Seo-Bo’s Ecriture (描法) No. 970428 (1997), in which the artist’s incisive formal vocabulary highlights the textural qualities of hanji (Korean paper), and Ha Chong-Hyun’s Conjunction 20-93 (2020) and Conjunction 20-94 (2020), paintings from the artist’s signature Conjunction series, in which Ha explores his internationally celebrated technique of bae-ap-bub, a singular method of pushing paint from the back to the front of the burlap canvas.

On May 13, 2021, Kukje Gallery will open The Other Side of Things, a solo exhibition of the conceptual artist Ahn Kyuchul in the gallery’s Busan space. Ahn’s second solo show with Kukje Gallery is also his first ever in Busan, providing a survey of the artist’s broad practice as well as introducing a new chapter of his career following retirement from his long tenure at the School of Visual Arts, Korea National University of Arts. The exhibition will remain on view through July 4, 2021. 
In Seoul, Kukje Gallery is preparing a solo exhibition of the Australian artist Daniel Boyd, slated to run from June 17 through August 1, 2021. Following his successful solo exhibition at Kukje Gallery Busan in 2019, this will be Boyd’s first show in Seoul and will present new works.