Robert Miller Gallery Artists (1)
Tuesday to Saturday 10AM to 6PM
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PAST EXHIBITION
Kwang-Young Chun
September 4, 2008—October 11, 2008
Press Release
Robert Miller Gallery is very pleased to announce a major solo exhibition by the Korean artist Kwang-Young Chun. This is Chun’s first show at the gallery and will include a number of his acclaimed Aggregation pieces.
Chun’s work is immediately recognizable and lends itself to endless scrutiny. The artist folds Korean mulberry paper covered with Korean language characters on small polystyrene forms, and then combines them with a surface to create large scale hybrids of sculpture, printmaking, and painting called Aggregations. The text includes well wishes for the viewer. The works alternately undulate, bristle, erupt or appear flat and puzzle-like. Their large scale makes the presence of the pieces magnetic and absorbing, as their surface and texture elicit close observation. As the viewer approaches a work, it becomes progressively a three-dimensional field, an accumulation of forms and an endless litany of text.
As a child, Kwang-Young Chun spent time at a family herbal medicine dispensary where small sacks of herbs hung from the ceiling, wrapped in mulberry paper and tied with string made of the same material. His personal experience serves as an inspiration for this work and ties Chun to the culture of the Korean peninsula. The world’s finest mulberry paper is made there from the pulp of the tree of the same name, and its use extends far beyond the medicinal. Koreans have covered the walls and floors of their homes with it, crafted tools and utensils, and stored goods in it to keep them from becoming damp.
Chun’s work, characterized by an apparent minimalism from a distance and marked by an incredible intricacy up close, has strong affinities with 20th and early 21st century artistic practice. The Minimalists serve as a point of reference along with early Pop artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns.
Kwang-Young Chun was born in 1944 in Hongchun, Korea. He received his BFA in 1968 from Hong-Ik University, Seoul, Korea and his MFA in 1971 from the Philadelphia College of Art. He was named Artist of the Year in 2001 by the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea and has exhibited widely in Korea and Japan. His work is held in several important Asian and American collections. |
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