Kukje Gallery is pleased to announce its participation in Frieze London and Frieze Masters 2023, from October 11 to 15, 2023. In honor of the 20th anniversary of Frieze London, this year’s exceptional program is set to welcome a global audience with a variety of projects, collaborations, and events that exceed its previous editions. Frieze London will focus on artworks dating from the 2000s onwards, showcasing the latest trends in contemporary art and featuring over 160 galleries from 40 countries, including 59 London-based galleries. Meanwhile, Frieze Masters, assembling a vast collection of ancient and modern masterpieces that possess both visual and art-historical significance, is anticipated to be the most international fair in the history of Frieze, with over 130 participating galleries. Commemorating the 20th anniversary, the week will unfold with a diverse array of cultural and art programs hosted by galleries, institutions, alternative spaces, and more across the city as a part of Frieze Week.
At Frieze London, Kukje Gallery will introduce a selection of earlier to recent works by Korean and international modern and contemporary artists that span diverse genres including painting, sculpture, and installation. This includes the vibrant canary yellow Écriture (描法) No. 221220 (2022) by the seminal Dansaekhwa artist Park Seo-Bo. Acclaimed for his mastery of both meditation and mindfulness through repetition, Park unveiled his new Écriture series employing ceramic in 2022. While the visual resemblance to his earlier works is evident, the combined use of ceramic and paint adds a compelling link to the history of Korean ceramics and signifies an important new body of work. The booth will also present Ha Chong-Hyun’s Conjunction 20-96 (2020), a recent work belonging to the Conjunction series. The artist, who famously developed a unique method of pushing paint from the back to the front of the canvas utilizing the rough weave of hemp cloth, here employs dark black paint—his signature color alongside white and earth tones. Ha's work is currently being shown in the landmark exhibition Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s–1970s at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, which has traveled from the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul. Also on view will be Kwon Young-Woo’s Untitled (2000). Kwon, who dedicated his life to exploring the materiality of hanji, is best known for his acts of tearing, ripping, pasting, and puncturing the picture plane, and is credited with sculpturally reinterpreting and reinvigorating traditional Oriental painting, a realm that employs ink as a main material. In acknowledgment of his art-historical significance, Kwon’s work was collected by the Centre Pompidou, Paris in 2021, along with the works of Park and Ha.
Additional works will include Add Two Add One, Divide Two Divide One No. 2020-902 (2020) by Kim Yunshin, a pioneering first-generation Korean female sculptor showing for the first time at Kukje Gallery’s booth. As the title implies, the work elucidates the sculptural process of adding one’s spirit into the work where "two becomes one through interaction, then splits again to become two different ones." Captivated by Argentine wood in 1985, Kim decided to relocate her practice to Argentina where she could expand her understanding of this material. Approaching the age of 90, Kim continues to create powerful works and recently held a solo exhibition titled Kim Yunshin: Towards Oneness at Nam-Seoul Museum of Art earlier this year. Kim Yong-Ik’s Exhausting Project 22-4: Conceptual Painting Disguised as a Retinal Painting (2022) represents the culmination of conceptual process wherein the artist endeavored to use all the remaining paint in his studio, beginning December 31, 2018, as a means of reflecting on and organizing his past life. Meanwhile, Untitled 7059 (2023) by Lee Kwang-Ho, immerses the viewer in an expansive horizontal landscape depicting the wetlands of the Kepler Track in New Zealand and its surroundings. Beloved for his meticulous eye and command of detail, Lee is scheduled for a solo exhibition at Kukje Gallery Seoul later this year. Contemporary artist Haegue Yang’s Obscure Rotating Reflective Running Cross-Handle Faucets – Scaly Squircles #12 (2023) will also be presented at the booth; a dynamic wall sculpture that combines a faucet and hose that mediate multiple dimensions with a black mirror that exudes an urban ambience. Yang, who has held recent exhibitions in Belgium, Japan, and Australia, most recently unveiled The Great Forgetfulness, a commissioned work for the National Sculpture Factory of Ireland. In the latter half of this year, she will participate in the 10th Performa Biennial in New York (starting November 1, 2023) and present Haegue Yang: Continuous Reenactments, her inaugural solo exhibition in Finland at the Helsinki Art Museum (HAM) (starting November 24, 2023). Suki Seokyeong Kang, who is currently the subject of a critically acclaimed solo exhibition at the Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul, will feature her Mountain #22-04 (2021-2022). Recalling the Inwangsan landscape seen from her studio in the Seochon neighborhood, the work is both three-dimensional and lyrical, reinterpreting the mountain ridge with materials such as iron, thread, and chain.
Kukje Gallery will also be showcasing a series of new works by international artists including Pale Pink Candy (2022) by the renowned contemporary artist Anish Kapoor, who is currently holding a solo exhibition at Kukje Gallery. Kapoor’s signature series of disc works challenge the notions of materiality and corporeality by reflecting and distorting the viewer’s perception. Elmgreen & Dragset, through their work Human Scale (Zero) (2018), reduce a swimming pool to essential components such as its elliptical structure, diving board, and ladder, only to magnify it again, allowing the sculpture to be perceived as a singular entity or figure. Meanwhile, the Danish artist collective SUPERFLEX’s Interface Painting (2022), a work made from porous aluminum foam in a bubblegum pink color reminiscent of underwater coral, will also be presented. By alluding to the marine environment, the work frames the interconnectedness of human materials and design with the more natural forms of other organisms, as well as the reimagining, restoration, and revitalization of urban ecosystems. Recently, the artists’ installation One Two Three Swing! (2019) was donated to Dorasan Station in Paju, the northernmost train station in South Korea and the first station en route to the North. Additionally, the booth will include To compete with the chorus of the world (2023), a denim painting by Korakrit Arunanondchai, who divides his time between New York and Bangkok. The artist, who staged his first solo exhibition at Kukje Gallery at the end of last year, initiated the use of denim as part of his exploration into globalization and the history of labor dominated by a Western narrative. Arunanondchai creates paintings where he layers bleached denim remnants left after being set on fire, images captured during the combustion process, and other elements on canvas, creating a multi-dimensional narrative.
Kukje Gallery is currently hosting Haegue Yang’s presentation Latent Dwelling (through October 8, 2023) at its Hanok. In addition, a major solo exhibition of Anish Kapoor fills Kukje Gallery's K1, K2, and K3 spaces and a solo exhibition of Wook-kyung Choi, a prominent female abstract expressionist painter, is on display at Kukje Gallery Busan through October 22, 2023.
