Kukje Gallery will participate in the KIAF ART SEOUL 2020 (hereafter KIAF) Online Viewing Rooms, running from September 23 through October 18, 2020. Since having launched in 2002, KIAF has been recognized for its consistent support of contemporary art, focusing on both recognized and emerging talent and establishing a reputation as one of Asia’s leading international art fairs. Acknowledged for its major collectors, curators, and art professionals from both Korea and around the world, the offline edition of KIAF, originally to have taken place in the Coex Convention & Exhibition Center (COEX) in Seoul’s Samseong-dong, will be held entirely online this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Online Viewing Rooms will be available on KIAF's official website (kiaf.org), fully accessible to all visitors who sign up for an account. Visitors can also download the Mobile App Book, which will replace the traditional printed catalogue, by accessing the designated QR code available on the official website. The VIP Preview will open at 3PM on September 16, 2020, one week before the public opening.
Kukje Gallery is widely acknowledged as a leading arts center in the cultural heart of Seoul, maintaining its reputation as a trend leader in the rapidly evolving international market and representing some of the world’s most critically acclaimed artists. The gallery’s virtual booth on KIAF’s Online Viewing Rooms will showcase a broad range of works by both contemporary Korean and international artists. This selection will include important pieces by Korea’s Dansaekhwa masters such as Lee Ufan’s With Winds (1988), a painting that captures the wind’s energy and movement with bold brushstrokes, Park Seo-Bo’s Ecriture (描法) No. 060630 (2006), highlighting the textural qualities of hanji (Korean paper) that play a vital role in the artist’s unique artistic vocabulary, and Ha Chong-Hyun’s Conjunction 18-23 (2018), which employs the technique of bae-ap-bub, an innovative method of pushing paint from the back to the front of the burlap canvas, utilizing its coarse weave to create sensuous, evocative effects. Other highlights include Work (1974) by Yoo Youngkuk, one of the founders of Korean abstract painting and Kim Whanki’s contemporaries who is best known for his vibrant vocabularies that distilled Korean naturalism into basic formal elements of point, line, plane, and color. Additional works include Thinner…and Thinner…#16-39 (2016) from the iconic series of “dot paintings” by Kim Yong-Ik, an artist who has maintained an independent stance amidst Korea’s dominant artistic movements, and Nœud Sauvage (2018), a glass sculpture by the French contemporary artist Jean-Michel Othoniel, whose work was the subject of a curated section at Kukje Gallery’s booth at KIAF last year.
In addition to the virtual booth, works by Kwon Young-Woo, Park Seo-Bo, Yoo Youngkuk, Chung Chang-Sup, Wook-kyung Choi, and Ha Chong-Hyun will be exhibited online from September 23 as part of a group exhibition titled Seeing the Deep Resonance - Korea Modern Contemporary Abstract, a special curated exhibition by KIAF.
Installed in Kukje Gallery’s Seoul location is a wholly immersive multimedia environment of luminous, surging waves by the media artist unit known as a'strict through September 27. At the Gallery’s Busan branch, a solo exhibition of the celebrated German photographer Candida Höfer, widely acknowledged for pushing the boundaries of contemporary photography, will open on September 18.
