Kukje Gallery will participate in Frieze Viewing Room Los Angeles edition, running from July 29 through August 1, 2021. In its third edition, the Los Angeles edition has adopted a fully digital platform, following the fair’s London and New York virtual editions and after postponing the event from its original timeframe of February to July of this year.
Kukje Gallery’s virtual booth for Frieze Viewing Room Los Angeles Edition will feature works by a roster of both Korean and international modern and contemporary artists. This selection will include important pieces by representative Korean artists such as Kim Yong-Ik’s Wrapped and Erased Utopia #16-2 (2016), an exemplary piece from the artist’s iconic series of “dot paintings.” Kim is one of the central figures in Korean modern and contemporary art history, having developed a unique philosophy and studio process whilst maintaining an independent stance amidst Korea’s dominant artistic movements—from modernism and conceptualism in the 1970s to the Minjung (populist) art movement of the 1980s—and has inspired subsequent generations of Korean artists to pursue a similar spirit of originality and nonconformity. Also on view will be the Korean contemporary artist Gimhongsok’s Untitled (Short People) – 6 balloons (2018) from a series of sculptures consisting of cast stainless steel balloons stacked on top of each other to form a column. Varying in size, these balloons are blown up by the artist’s friends and acquaintances before being cast, a process that signals a symbolic transformation of their breath into the final object.
Alongside these works by prominent Korean artists will be a selection of works by acclaimed international artists including the Swiss contemporary artist Ugo Rondinone’s fünfteraprilzweitausendundsechzehn (2016), which comes from a series of “cloud” paintings that are painted on a cloud-shaped canvas using a sponge to achieve an atmospheric effect; and Julian Opie’s Walking in New York. 7. (2019), a work that depicts the pedestrians of New York in the artist’s distinctive formal language and signature reductive style. Opie’s highly anticipated third solo exhibition with Kukje Gallery will open in the K2 and K3 spaces on October 7, 2021, featuring new paintings, films, and sculpture.
Also on view will be the iconic American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe’s dye transfer color print titled Roses (1988); the Scandinavian artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset’s In the Same Boat (2018), which features two interlinked life savers which create a single united form, referencing the plight of immigrants who share the same boat on a journey in search of a better life; and the Danish artist collective SUPERFLEX’s signature piece The Show Must Go On (2019), a freestanding, illuminated signboard made with blue LED letters that reflects on the meaning and reach of the famous expression while wryly commenting on commercial signage.
Along with the announcement for the upcoming edition of Frieze Viewing Room, the fair organizers revealed the next Frieze Los Angeles to be held in February of 2022 will be in a new location in Beverly Hills. Located at 9900 Wilshire Boulevard, adjacent to the Beverly Hilton Hotel, the fair organizers emphasized that the new site occupies a “prime position between the Hammer Museum and the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts” and that “[a]lthough the situation in California has started to improve, the timeline constraints and ongoing uncertainty have made it clear that focusing our collective efforts on 2022 will make the best possible experience for all involved.” The fair also announced last May that Frieze Seoul will premiere in September of 2022 alongside KIAF ART SEOUL, in partnership with the Galleries Association of Korea.
Currently on view at Kukje Gallery’s Seoul location is a solo exhibition of new works by Daniel Boyd titled Treasure Island, which will remain on view through August 1, 2021. Meanwhile at Kukje Gallery Busan, a solo exhibition of the Korean figurative painter Jina Park, titled Human Lights, will be on view from August 6, 2021.
