Kukje Gallery will participate in Art Basel’s OVR: Pioneers, a new edition of online viewing rooms (hereafter OVR) announced by the fair organizers, from March 24 through March 27, 2021. Kukje Gallery will present a solo virtual booth featuring a selection of historical works by Ha Chong-Hyun, the Korean modern and contemporary master internationally acclaimed for his commitment to painting, continuously experimenting with various materials and techniques. Following the cancellation of Art Basel’s Hong Kong, Basel, and Miami Beach editions in light of the pandemic last year, the fair has responded by initiating new online viewing environments designed to facilitate the very highest level of visual art experience, with the aim to capture the unique energy of a regular fair by presenting a series of selective “freestanding, highly focused, thematic edition[s].” The first initiative of 2021, titled OVR: Pioneers, will feature 100 galleries from 25 countries and is “dedicated to artists who have broken new ground in terms of their aesthetics, conceptual approach, socio-political themes, and use of mediums,” according to the fair’s statement. Following successful presentations at preceding editions of Art Basel’s themed OVRs last year, Kukje Gallery is excited to participate in this upcoming iteration.
In the same spirit as OVR: Pioneers, Kukje Gallery’s presentation will resemble a fully fledged exhibition, providing a rare opportunity for audiences all over the globe to intimately engage with seven of Ha’s historical works from the 1970s through the 1990s, a period that marks the artist’s early years of experimentation with his signature Conjunction series. Working with muted earth tones on burlap or hemp cloth, and challenging the strict delineation between sculpture, painting, and performance, Ha was instrumental in defining a unique Korean modernism. Ha’s early Conjunction pieces generally consist of neutral and earthy colors as seen in Conjunction 74-17 (1974), Conjunction 84-13 (1984), and Conjunction 85-50 (1985), all of which are derived from the hues found in Korean landscapes and culture, utilizing subtle colors reminiscent of traditional Korean roof tiles called giwa—as seen in Conjunction 92-58 (1992)—as well as brick, soil, and native vegetation known as silvergrass, as seen in Conjunction 85-101 (1985). The OVR: Pioneers presentation evinces the artist’s continuous struggle to situate his visual language within the historical context of the modernization of Korea and the transformation of Korean art while maintaining the essential formal and compositional characteristics of what would later come to be a significant school of Korean Modern Art.
Ha Chong-Hyun’s Conjunction series has garnered critical acclaim across both Korea and within international art circles since the early 1970s. Substituting ordinary canvas with burlap, a coarse, multi-purpose material used by U.S. military troops and aid organizations operating in South Korea at the time, Ha applies thick oil paint to the back and presses the pigment, forcing the pigment to seep slowly and painstakingly through the weave. The artist refers to this labor-intensive process as bae-ap-bub (back-pressure method). The paint that bleeds through to the front is then scraped into stunning abstract matrices that preserve and emphasize the materiality of both the hemp and pigment.
Kukje Gallery currently has on view Robert Mapplethorpe: More Life, a much-anticipated solo exhibition of the legendary American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, in the gallery's K2 (Seoul) and Busan spaces. One of the most acclaimed photographers of the late 20th century, Mapplethorpe and his iconic work defined its era and remain central to discussions of queer identity, celebrity, beauty, and censorship. This first presentation of the late artist’s work to be held in Korea will remain on view through March 28, 2021.
