Kukje Gallery is pleased to announce its participation in the inaugural edition of Paris+ par Art Basel (hereafter Paris+), from October 19, 2022, through 23, 2022, at the Grand Palais Éphémère. Art Basel announced in January a new seven-year contract with the Grand Palais, replacing FIAC (Foire internationale d'art contemporain) as one of the most anticipated art fairs in Europe. The first two editions of Paris+ will take place at the Grand Palais Éphémère on the Champ-de-Mars due to ongoing renovations at the historical venue, and will then switch to the Grand Palais on the Champs-Elysées beginning in 2024. As the name suggests, Paris+ has been conceived as extending beyond the fair walls, becoming a city-wide event with parallel programming in partnership with local institutions. Art Basel's newest fair will be led by Director Clément Delépine, the former Co-Director of Paris Internationale; General Manager Virginie Aubert, the former Vice President for Christie’s France; and Deputy Director Maxime Hourdequin, who recently served as the Deputy Director of FIAC. The inaugural iteration of Paris+ will bring together 156 galleries from 30 countries from continents including Europe, North and South America, and Asia. Galleries will participate in different sectors including Galeries, the fair’s main sector; Galeries Émergentes, which features 16 solo presentations by emerging galleries across the globe; and Sites, dedicated to artistic projects taking place in the heart of Paris including the Jardin des Tuileries, Place Vendôme, Musée national Eugène-Delacroix, and Chapelle des Petits-Augustins des Beaux-Arts de Paris. A program of "Conversations," organized by the Paris based writer/curator duo Pierre-Alexandre Mateos and Charles Teyssou, will take place in the Bal de la Marine, providing a platform for vital dialogue between leading figures in the art world and beyond.    Taking part in Galeries, Kukje Gallery will introduce a comprehensive selection of works by renowned Korean and international artists. The gallery will showcase Écriture (描法) No. 991031 (1999) by the Dansaekhwa artist Park Seo-Bo, who is the subject of a comprehensive monograph titled Park Seo-Bo: Écriture, recently published by the leading international art publisher Rizzoli. The selection also includes Ha Chong-Hyun’s Conjunction 95-020 (1995), an early piece from the artist’s internationally celebrated series that employs the technique of bae-ap-bub, a singular method of pushing paint from the back of the canvas to the front. Earlier this year, Ha’s solo exhibition at Palazzetto Tito in Venice was on view as an official Collateral Event of the Biennale Arte 2022, featuring a curated selection of approximately thirty works spanning six decades and presenting a comprehensive overview of the full range of his material experimentation and conceptual rigor. Just last year, important works by Park and Ha joined the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which houses the largest modern and contemporary art collection in Europe. The ongoing interest in Dansaekhwa internationally highlights the important contributions of Korean art to art history and provides an essential point of departure for a renewed dialogue on the evolution of twentieth century art practice.    Also on view will be works by a wide range of Korean contemporary artists including Kibong Rhee’s painting Vanishment ᅳ The shadow (2017), a dreamlike representation of natural elements including water, fog, and trees on Plexiglas and canvas. Rhee is the subject of an upcoming solo exhibition at Kukje Gallery in Seoul and Busan, slated for November 17, which will feature new works in his iconic style. Also on display will be Suki Seokyeong Kang’s new work Mat 120 × 165 #22-36 (2021-2022), a contemporary adaptation of a woven floor mat called hwamunseok, on which a traditional Korean solo court dance known as chunaengmu is performed. Kang’s Mat series is characterized by a meticulously woven reed mat delicately embellished with subtle geometric patterns set behind a minimal lattice frame.   These works by some of today's most important Korean artists will be exhibited alongside those by widely recognized international artists, including Kafka's Complaints, Selected (1992/2004) by the American artist Roni Horn. Horn's early sculpture points to an important aspect of her multivalent practice, foregrounding her interest in language as sculptural form. The work consists of rectangular blocks composed of plastic and aluminum that spell out words such as “MUSIC,” “FLOWERS,” and “MEAT,” among the most commonly cited words in Franz Kafka’s letters to Felice Bauer, who was twice the fiancée of the renowned novelist. Horn was part of a two-person exhibition titled Felix Gonzalez-Torres – Roni Horn that recently closed at the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection in Paris. This acclaimed exhibition examined the artistic conversation between these two seminal conceptual artists and was organized around four iconic artworks from the Pinault Collection. The booth will also introduce Oracle (2022) by Jean-Michel Othoniel—created in dialogue with Indian glass artisans, this work employs mirrored glass bricks as a unit of composition which, for the artist, is one of the most rudimentary and universal forms that symbolizes the essential human desire for “living.” Othoniel is currently the subject of a solo exhibition titled The Dream of Water (on view through November 6, 2022) at the Palais Idéal du Facteur Cheval in Hauterives, Drôme, which creates a subtle dialogue between the existing architecture of the palace and Othoniel’s aquatic features including fountains and waterfalls made of glass. The artist’s La rose du Louvre paintings are also permanently on view as part of the collection of the Louvre Museum, beneath the iconic I. M. Pei-designed glass pyramid. Also on view will be Flagless Nation (2022), a new denim work on canvas by the Thai contemporary artist Korakrit Arunanondchai—the subject of an upcoming exhibition at Kukje Gallery in December—who weaves together enchanting webs of personal narratives and historical constructs. Arunanondchai has recently opened a solo exhibition at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, titled Korakrit Arunanondchai – From dying to living (on view through April 9, 2023), featuring an immersive presentation that hybridizes documentary, film, installation, performance, painting, and sculpture. The artist is also showing a video installation for his first ever solo presentation in Korea titled Songs for dying/Songs for living (on view through October 30, 2022) at Art Sonje Center in Seoul.   In Paris, the Swiss contemporary artist Ugo Rondinone will become the subject of a major solo exhibition at the Petit Palais titled the water is a poem unwritten by the air no. the earth is a poem unwritten by the fire, on view from October 18, 2022, through January 8, 2023. Featuring a multivocal choral of 3 groups of sculptures that were made in different years and coming together at the esteemed venue for the first time as a comprehensive exhibition, all 3 groups of sculptures show the human body, engaging and reflecting the union of the human body with the natural elements: earth, water, air, and fire. In Seoul, Kukje Gallery is currently holding LEE SEUNG JIO, the gallery’s first exhibition of the pioneering Korean geometric abstract painter organized across all three spaces (K1, K2, K3) of the gallery. And coinciding with Busan Biennale, Kukje Gallery Busan is currently showing Quasi-Legit, a comprehensive presentation of works by Haegue Yang including those from her iconic series Sol LeWitt Upside Down, Lacquer Paintings, and Sonic Sculptures. Both shows will remain on view through October 30, 2022.