Kukje Gallery is pleased to announce its participation in the 46th edition of FIAC (Foire internationale d'art contemporain). FIAC will take place at the iconic Grand Palais in Paris from October 17 through October 20, 2019. Considered one of the most important annual art fairs along with Art Basel and Frieze, FIAC welcomes more than 75,000 visitors each year. In 2019, a total of 199 major galleries from 29 countries, with a focus on modern and contemporary art, will participate. In addition to the General Sector which showcases gallery booths, FIAC will feature the Lafayette Sector which introduces ten young contemporary art galleries with the support of the Groupe Galeries Lafayette, FIAC’s official sponsor, and FIAC Projects at the Petit Palais and Avenue Winston Churchill. Beyond the fair premises, as part of FIAC week over one hundred galleries will participate in Gallery Night on October 17 from 6pm to 10pm, providing an opportunity for visitors to discover Parisian galleries across the city.
Kukje Gallery’s booth will consist of both two-dimensional works and installations. Highlights include Work (1980) by Yoo Youngkuk, a painting that embodies his practice capturing vibrant vocabularies that distill Korean naturalism within an investigation of point, line, plane, and color; a new Dialogue (2019) painting by the internationally renowned Lee Ufan; a recent work from Haegue Yang’s Sonic Gym series in which the entire sculpture’s surface is covered with bells; Suki Seokyeong Kang’s Mat 55 x 40 #18-52 (2018-2019) which focuses on the solo court dance known as chunaengmu; and Kyungah Ham’s 43. Trental fluttering its wings gracefully, Detail From SMS Series 04 (2017-2018), a hand-embroidered textile painting created in collaboration with North Korean artisans.
The gallery’s booth will also include Jean-Michel Othoniel’s Purple Lotus (2015), a sculpture in which mirrored glass and stainless steel beads come together to create a dense and exquisitely designed structure. Six of Othoniel’s new paintings are currently on view at the Louvre for a solo exhibition titled La Rose du Louvre on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of its iconic Pyramid. While initially planned as a temporary exhibit, the Louvre has recently announced its acquisition of Othoniel's paintings, and that they will be permanently installed amidst the garden statuary of the 17th and 18th centuries in the Puget Courtyard.
Outside of the Grand Palais, FIAC Projects presents approximately thirty sculptures and installations at the Petit Palais and Avenue Winston Churchill, open from October 16 (one day prior to the public opening of the General Sector) through October 19. The street connecting the Grand Palais to the Petit Palais, Avenue Winston Churchill, will be completely pedestrianized for the entire FIAC week, enabling pedestrians to move freely and temporarily reconstructing the original esplanade of the 1900 World Fair. This year, FIAC Projects is conceived in collaboration with the curator Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel. Lamarche-Vadel is curating the next Riga Biennial (2020), and was a curator at the Palais de Tokyo from 2012 to 2019. She is also part of the selection committee for the Lafayette Sector.
As part of FIAC Projects Lee Ufan will present an installation titled Relatum – a Corner (1981/2019). Consisting of a carefully placed steel plate and seven boulders, the installation is part of the artist’s longstanding Relatum series—first presented in 1972. The manmade, industrial steel plate juxtaposed with the heavy stones shaped by nature, highlight the power of creation, and though different, that both materials are products of natural forces. Ten new works from the Relatum series, which highlights these dynamic material relationships found in nature, are currently on view for Lee’s solo exhibition titled Lee Ufan: Open Dimension on view through September 13, 2020, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.
FIAC Hors les Murs (outside the walls) is an exhibition of outdoor sculptures and installations throughout the city; it seeks to engage the widest possible audiences and will be installed in iconic public spaces throughout the city of Paris. The conceptual artist Jenny Holzer, who employs text as her primary medium, will install five benches from the Survival: It is in your self-interest… (2015) series in the Tuileries Garden. Covered by engraved texts, these white marble benches evoke memorials. Aphoristic language remains Holzer’s primary tool for unpacking communication and she uses text throughout her artistic practice, framing both its formal and literal meanings. This coming November, the artist’s works will be installed in the outdoor yard of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Gwacheon, and at the Seoul Box of the MMCA Seoul.
