Independent Curator Period
2006----------------
Soma Condition
-A communication with the Body-
▶ period : 1st Nov. - 3rd Dec. 2006
▶ venue : www.okgallery.net
▶ curator : Ok-Real Kim
▶ artists : Barbara Philipp, Dany Leriche, Diadji Diop, Dorota Buczkowska
Maciek Stepinski, Matthias Schafer, Ryo Suzuki, Tae-Kyoung Lee
▶support : Arts council Korea, Paradise culture foundation
▶Curated by Ok-Real KIM(Curator Independent / Criticism)
Human body mediates history and culture, and is a pathway which goes across different cultures. As a subject of cultural productions and communications, the body continues to produce different things and to reproduce things in diverse ways. In order to overcome the crisis and the suppressions, it demolishes the borders and develops variable paths, but at the same time creates a deep abyss.
The purpose of this exhibition is to present the positive aspect of the experimental art which reflects the artist's concern on what the fullness of body condition is in the artistic point of view, rather than to merely show it as the object of spectacle consumption or as the origin of sensation that is flown out from modern arts like excrements. The body must stop serving as a cultural border between genders, or between flesh and blood. Only when the body is 'reterritorialized' as a space of cultural experience through 'local' and 'non-directive' expansions, can contemporary art achieve its fullness.
In this aspect, we intend to make this exhibition a space of cultural practice. Just as how Gilles Deleuze has mentioned on the importance of "Rhizome" which allows for multiple, non-hierarchical entry and exit points, rather than of the plants firmly rooted in one place. "Soma condition, "as is called this project, will propose multi-aspects on the fullness of body condition which values the desires of the body itself and organs.
"Soma Condition" will allow the young artists, working in Europe and Korea, and with different origins and cultural backgrounds - Austria, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Poland and Senegal, to express their concerns on the body. Through their visions, we can all ponder on the fullness of body condition which can reterritorialize the space of cultural experience. Being eager to be given the opportunity to execute this exhibition, we hope to share the water drawn from the deep valley of culture by these young artists.
2004----------------
▶ Place : Daegu Arts Center
▶ Directed by : Kim Ok-real (Independent Curator)
▶ Open ivent : Joe Sung-jin (Mime), Woo Hee-Ja (Song Tradition)
Yang Seung-ok calls herself a wild flower. Whenever she walks countryside, she never pass unnoticed any tiny, coarse flower. She is so naive that we can't believe her age, over 50. She has very sensitive sensibility. She closes her eyes to feel the touch of wind and to listen to the sound of raindrops. When she is absorbed in drawing, sometimes she wields a broom so earnestly that she seems to be possessed or she is so active that she looks like an active volcano, but sometimes she sweeps and sweeps with a broom calmly just like a mediator.
She sweeps and sweeps with a broom. The repetition of sweeping with a broom makes some thick traces on the papers, or on the canvases. The thick traces of broom sweeping with seems to suggest the thick layers of her life time or the vague, unknown world beyond the horizon of sea. In her works, we can recognize the concept of time and at the same time, the concept of space. She suggests the concepts of time and space not by drawing with a brush but by sweeping with a broom. Her sweeping with a broom is similar to a performance. I asked her why she sweeps with a broom. She answered, " a broom is a means by which I sweep off all the negatives of my mind. I sweep and sweep on the canvases to sweep off my desires, tears, and pains."
Knock
Is it possible for her to open the door by knocking? She knocks on the canvases to go into the world which she seeks after. Through knocking, she opens the door and goes into the world of freedom. She says that at the moment of hot meeting with the canvases and brooms, the world of freedom and peace is opened. In the world of hot meeting, the free vitality, as a never vanishing flame, comes out of the ecstasy which she experiences in knocking and knocking.
Like this, the 'sweep' series also contains the natural vitality of wild flowers. As we know, she called herself a wild flower. What she intends to contain in the canvases, that is, what she wants to sweep off or to open by knocking, is finally in herself. Her attitude to see her own self is not the denial or the criticism of self but the gaze at the self in existence. She identifies herself with a wild flower and ,through the vitality of wild flowers, she gazes at herself.
The gaze starts at friendly looking at things and nature. The key to the truth is in the self and it can be discovered through self identification by gazing at the self. According to Krishnamurti, a modern philosopher and a master of mind, "the gaze is moving every moment. So it is not a habitual which can be practiced. The habitual mind is short of sensibility. And the mind which dwells in the conventional action is dull and stubborn. On the other hand, the gaze needs flexibility and sensitivity. The gaze is a process of liberation from the action of the self. The more expanded the gaze is, the more free from all the action such as thoughts, motives, and the pursuits of desire we are. Because the gaze means the freedom and it produces the freedom. He says that the gaze is the truth as it was and the simple truth of our daily life. So to advance farther, we have to understand the truth of our daily life and to start from things close to us. If we can understand something close to us, we can understand something far from us. Therefore, the distance between something close with something far doesn't exist in real. Because the beginning and the end are one.
Like this, Yang's 'sweep' is the gaze in which she finds herself. She is free from a certain specific discussion or modern difficult codes. Through the knocking with a broom(which is a wild flowers and at the same time, herself), we can have a contemplative time in the midst of heavy and busy life, and meet a wild flower as a religious mediator. The black points which she made through knocking on the canvas, look like wild flowers waving in the wind or look like a heavy silence after the wind stops blowing. This is the place which conceives life. Through countless knocking, she has a hot meeting with the gaze at life and at the same time, a portrait of self. By knocking, Yang meets a portrait of herself with the gaze of life, and opens the door into freedom which she desires eagerly to open.
If we can feel a certain delight which she may meet through sweeping and sweeping, through knocking and knocking, with flexibility and sensitivity, if we can meet the portrait of herself with our clear mind and imagination, we can be able to go into the door which she knocks at and to have a hot meeting with the world of vitality and infinite freedom.
2001----------------
Four artists (Young-se Kim, Hee-soo Kim, Tae-kyoung Jung, Mi-ok Jung) question the ‘identity of a painting’ through their one-dimensional work. These artists pursue freedom only on the surface despite the world’s tendency to leave it behind. Here we present their first collective exhibition.
· Display Period: Dec. 11th – 16th, 2001
· Place: Daegu Arts Center (Halls 9, 10)
· Artists : Kim Young-se, Kim Hee-soo, Jung Mi-ok, Jung Tae-kyoung
· Directed by: Ok-real Kim (Independent Curator)
2001----------------
Sponsored by: YMCA Daegu
Place: Gallery ‘Bitsal’
Display Period: Feb. 13th – 25th, 2001
Directed by: Kim Ok-real
Opening event: Mime performance by Jo Sung-jin
This exhibition titled as ‘Beauty, that is, Earth in ceramics’ is to celebrate the opening of gallery ‘Bitsal.’ It is also an attempt to go beyond the abstract notions and innumerable definitions of beauty, and find it specifically in the practical functions of the pottery.
Owing to its architecture, the gallery seems most suitable for the kind of exhibition which connects art with everyday life. Not only because it is located in a house, but more importantly, because it is the general mission of an art gallery to gain a proximity with the public and help them to encounter art in their ordinary life. In fact, what is so called the ‘originality’ of the genius contemporary artists is actually making the public turn away from art. In this context, the activation of ceramic exhibitions could narrow this gap, for it relates art with our life. Furthermore, it will enable art to live and breathe with the general public, instead of remaining as a privilege to the few.
For this reason, ‘Beauty, that is, Earth in ceramics’ is an effort to concentrate on the methodical research on how to bring the two (certainly, art and life) close together. Despite the fact that crafts are naturally different from painting and sculpture in its practicality, it is gaining a broad range of its appreciators today as more importance has been attached to its aesthetic values. Thus, crafts become a way to overcome the communicational limits of the contemporary art.
The three potters invited to this exhibition emphasize the liberal crudity of the free shape. They wish to share the deep taste of their ceramic artwork, the fruit of their long research on how to ‘obtain beauty without seeking it’ in using natural formative materials.
Feb. 13th, 2001
Okreal Kim(Independent Curator)
2001----------------
▶ Display Period: Sep. 4th-10th, 2001
▶ Place: L-side gallery (Daegu)
▶ Directed by: Ok-real Kim (Independent Curator)
▶ Artists: Kim Kyoung-min(Video) / Park Yoon-kyoung(Object) / Bae Tae-joo(Painting)
‘Summer History 2001 (July & August)’ is a realization of the images, aroused by the experiences at the specific location (Sungjoo) and viewed through each artist’s own perspective. In other words, it is a visualization of the distance existing between the idea (imagination of the artist) and the object (in time and space: here, Sungjoo), and at the same time, a comparison of the different ways in which each artist compresses the potential power of the idea and the object into one image and links the two working spaces – the place of exhibition and his atelier.
Sketches on the exhibition
Over the two months of July and August, I have seen works being shaped and done. The school, closed for 3 years, had overgrown weeds all about it, rats and bugs in the classrooms, as if they owned this place. It was right then, when we started feeling comfortable living in this old school and the steaming heat of August was about to go away, that we had to leave. I remember Mr. Bae and Ms. Park, as a way to escape from the heat, taking a shower behind a tree where they had hanged up a textile sheet to cover the scene. Such was the situation; there was no shower, nor a refrigerator. Now I hope that many will come and see the history of the summer 2001, the works done in a closed school out in the country by these enthusiastic artists.
Sep. 4th, 2001
Okreal Kim(Independent Curator)
2000----------------
Nov. 4th, 2000
Okreal Kim(Independent Curator)
2000----------------
■ Display Period: May 9th – 14th, 2000
■ Place: Daegu Arts Center (Halls 6, 7, 8)
■ Opening Event: Tuesday, May 9th, 5 pm-7pm (Seminar on the exhibition, Discussion with the artists)
■ Directed by: Independent Curator, Ok-real Kim
■ Artists: Ho-deuk Kim, O-bong Kwon, Myung-mi Lee, Dae-sung Kim and another
-GAME/SPACE/BODY-
Since art is obliged to mirror the reality, the idea of dismantlement was inevitably introduced and developed by contemporary art. The exhibition ‘Paradigm shift’ is an attempt to go over the problems of today’s art as we are moving into the new millennium. It suggests finding the modern solutions in a future-oriented structure. Thus it represents the earnest hope of the artists to go beyond their aesthetic mission and restore the centrality of nature and human. It also presents an ‘alternative proposal’ to the upcoming new century.
(Installation) – Dividing space into two dimensions – ‘filling’ and ‘emptying’ of the internal echoes of life and nature, Ho-deuk Kim actively utilizes the notion of space. For him, the whole space becomes a living artwork when the visitors pass in and out of it.
(surface) – O-bong Kwon uses dynamic lines to show the interaction between color and line, which are the most basic languages of painting.
(surface) –GAME
Myung-mi Lee creates an excellent harmony of loud colors in changing forms of the frame.
(Video) – Five artists (Dae-sung Kim, Sung-min Kim, Joon-ki Na, Young-hyeok Jung, Woo-yong Jung) are engaged in video presentation to show the body as a living area of all senses, an important subject of communication, the most concrete and realistic mode of our existence, and finally the live soil of our thoughts and behavior.
May 9th, 2000
Okreal Kim(Independent Curator)
2006----------------
Soma Condition
-A communication with the Body-
▶ period : 1st Nov. - 3rd Dec. 2006
▶ venue : www.okgallery.net
▶ curator : Ok-Real Kim
▶ artists : Barbara Philipp, Dany Leriche, Diadji Diop, Dorota Buczkowska
Maciek Stepinski, Matthias Schafer, Ryo Suzuki, Tae-Kyoung Lee
▶support : Arts council Korea, Paradise culture foundation
▶Curated by Ok-Real KIM(Curator Independent / Criticism)
Human body mediates history and culture, and is a pathway which goes across different cultures. As a subject of cultural productions and communications, the body continues to produce different things and to reproduce things in diverse ways. In order to overcome the crisis and the suppressions, it demolishes the borders and develops variable paths, but at the same time creates a deep abyss.
The purpose of this exhibition is to present the positive aspect of the experimental art which reflects the artist's concern on what the fullness of body condition is in the artistic point of view, rather than to merely show it as the object of spectacle consumption or as the origin of sensation that is flown out from modern arts like excrements. The body must stop serving as a cultural border between genders, or between flesh and blood. Only when the body is 'reterritorialized' as a space of cultural experience through 'local' and 'non-directive' expansions, can contemporary art achieve its fullness.
In this aspect, we intend to make this exhibition a space of cultural practice. Just as how Gilles Deleuze has mentioned on the importance of "Rhizome" which allows for multiple, non-hierarchical entry and exit points, rather than of the plants firmly rooted in one place. "Soma condition, "as is called this project, will propose multi-aspects on the fullness of body condition which values the desires of the body itself and organs.
"Soma Condition" will allow the young artists, working in Europe and Korea, and with different origins and cultural backgrounds - Austria, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Poland and Senegal, to express their concerns on the body. Through their visions, we can all ponder on the fullness of body condition which can reterritorialize the space of cultural experience. Being eager to be given the opportunity to execute this exhibition, we hope to share the water drawn from the deep valley of culture by these young artists.
Nov. 1st, 2006
Okreal Kim(Independent Curator)
Okreal Kim(Independent Curator)
2004----------------
YANG Sung-Ock
Hot-Meeting
▶ Display Period : June 29th- july 4th, 2004▶ Place : Daegu Arts Center
▶ Directed by : Kim Ok-real (Independent Curator)
▶ Open ivent : Joe Sung-jin (Mime), Woo Hee-Ja (Song Tradition)
Yang Seung-ok calls herself a wild flower. Whenever she walks countryside, she never pass unnoticed any tiny, coarse flower. She is so naive that we can't believe her age, over 50. She has very sensitive sensibility. She closes her eyes to feel the touch of wind and to listen to the sound of raindrops. When she is absorbed in drawing, sometimes she wields a broom so earnestly that she seems to be possessed or she is so active that she looks like an active volcano, but sometimes she sweeps and sweeps with a broom calmly just like a mediator.
She sweeps and sweeps with a broom. The repetition of sweeping with a broom makes some thick traces on the papers, or on the canvases. The thick traces of broom sweeping with seems to suggest the thick layers of her life time or the vague, unknown world beyond the horizon of sea. In her works, we can recognize the concept of time and at the same time, the concept of space. She suggests the concepts of time and space not by drawing with a brush but by sweeping with a broom. Her sweeping with a broom is similar to a performance. I asked her why she sweeps with a broom. She answered, " a broom is a means by which I sweep off all the negatives of my mind. I sweep and sweep on the canvases to sweep off my desires, tears, and pains."
 |
| Yang, Sungok |
Knock
Is it possible for her to open the door by knocking? She knocks on the canvases to go into the world which she seeks after. Through knocking, she opens the door and goes into the world of freedom. She says that at the moment of hot meeting with the canvases and brooms, the world of freedom and peace is opened. In the world of hot meeting, the free vitality, as a never vanishing flame, comes out of the ecstasy which she experiences in knocking and knocking.
Like this, the 'sweep' series also contains the natural vitality of wild flowers. As we know, she called herself a wild flower. What she intends to contain in the canvases, that is, what she wants to sweep off or to open by knocking, is finally in herself. Her attitude to see her own self is not the denial or the criticism of self but the gaze at the self in existence. She identifies herself with a wild flower and ,through the vitality of wild flowers, she gazes at herself.
The gaze starts at friendly looking at things and nature. The key to the truth is in the self and it can be discovered through self identification by gazing at the self. According to Krishnamurti, a modern philosopher and a master of mind, "the gaze is moving every moment. So it is not a habitual which can be practiced. The habitual mind is short of sensibility. And the mind which dwells in the conventional action is dull and stubborn. On the other hand, the gaze needs flexibility and sensitivity. The gaze is a process of liberation from the action of the self. The more expanded the gaze is, the more free from all the action such as thoughts, motives, and the pursuits of desire we are. Because the gaze means the freedom and it produces the freedom. He says that the gaze is the truth as it was and the simple truth of our daily life. So to advance farther, we have to understand the truth of our daily life and to start from things close to us. If we can understand something close to us, we can understand something far from us. Therefore, the distance between something close with something far doesn't exist in real. Because the beginning and the end are one.
 | ||
| Yang, Sungok |
If we can feel a certain delight which she may meet through sweeping and sweeping, through knocking and knocking, with flexibility and sensitivity, if we can meet the portrait of herself with our clear mind and imagination, we can be able to go into the door which she knocks at and to have a hot meeting with the world of vitality and infinite freedom.
June 29th, 2004
Okreal Kim(Independent Curator)
Okreal Kim(Independent Curator)
2001----------------
‘Identity of a painting’
- Memo one -
Four artists (Young-se Kim, Hee-soo Kim, Tae-kyoung Jung, Mi-ok Jung) question the ‘identity of a painting’ through their one-dimensional work. These artists pursue freedom only on the surface despite the world’s tendency to leave it behind. Here we present their first collective exhibition.
· Display Period: Dec. 11th – 16th, 2001
· Place: Daegu Arts Center (Halls 9, 10)
· Artists : Kim Young-se, Kim Hee-soo, Jung Mi-ok, Jung Tae-kyoung
· Directed by: Ok-real Kim (Independent Curator)
 |
Kim Young-se – Spatial expansion by manual
activities
|
 |
| Jung Mi-ok – Visual expansion by ‘repetition’ |
 |
Jung Tae-kyoung– My painting, our painting, the fundamental question
|
 | |||
| Kim Hee-soo– Perpetual purity of an instant, its pictorial reception |
Dec. 11th, 2001
Okreal Kim(Independent Curator)
Okreal Kim(Independent Curator)
2001----------------
Beauty, that is, Earth in ceramics
Sponsored by: YMCA Daegu
Place: Gallery ‘Bitsal’
Display Period: Feb. 13th – 25th, 2001
Directed by: Kim Ok-real
Opening event: Mime performance by Jo Sung-jin
This exhibition titled as ‘Beauty, that is, Earth in ceramics’ is to celebrate the opening of gallery ‘Bitsal.’ It is also an attempt to go beyond the abstract notions and innumerable definitions of beauty, and find it specifically in the practical functions of the pottery.
 |
| MIN Kyung-young |
Owing to its architecture, the gallery seems most suitable for the kind of exhibition which connects art with everyday life. Not only because it is located in a house, but more importantly, because it is the general mission of an art gallery to gain a proximity with the public and help them to encounter art in their ordinary life. In fact, what is so called the ‘originality’ of the genius contemporary artists is actually making the public turn away from art. In this context, the activation of ceramic exhibitions could narrow this gap, for it relates art with our life. Furthermore, it will enable art to live and breathe with the general public, instead of remaining as a privilege to the few.
 |
| PARK Sung-bag |
For this reason, ‘Beauty, that is, Earth in ceramics’ is an effort to concentrate on the methodical research on how to bring the two (certainly, art and life) close together. Despite the fact that crafts are naturally different from painting and sculpture in its practicality, it is gaining a broad range of its appreciators today as more importance has been attached to its aesthetic values. Thus, crafts become a way to overcome the communicational limits of the contemporary art.
 |
| TAE Sung-ryung |
The three potters invited to this exhibition emphasize the liberal crudity of the free shape. They wish to share the deep taste of their ceramic artwork, the fruit of their long research on how to ‘obtain beauty without seeking it’ in using natural formative materials.
Feb. 13th, 2001
Okreal Kim(Independent Curator)
2001----------------
‘SUMMER HISTORY 2001’
▶ Display Period: Sep. 4th-10th, 2001
▶ Place: L-side gallery (Daegu)
▶ Directed by: Ok-real Kim (Independent Curator)
▶ Artists: Kim Kyoung-min(Video) / Park Yoon-kyoung(Object) / Bae Tae-joo(Painting)
‘Summer History 2001 (July & August)’ is a realization of the images, aroused by the experiences at the specific location (Sungjoo) and viewed through each artist’s own perspective. In other words, it is a visualization of the distance existing between the idea (imagination of the artist) and the object (in time and space: here, Sungjoo), and at the same time, a comparison of the different ways in which each artist compresses the potential power of the idea and the object into one image and links the two working spaces – the place of exhibition and his atelier.
Sketches on the exhibition
Over the two months of July and August, I have seen works being shaped and done. The school, closed for 3 years, had overgrown weeds all about it, rats and bugs in the classrooms, as if they owned this place. It was right then, when we started feeling comfortable living in this old school and the steaming heat of August was about to go away, that we had to leave. I remember Mr. Bae and Ms. Park, as a way to escape from the heat, taking a shower behind a tree where they had hanged up a textile sheet to cover the scene. Such was the situation; there was no shower, nor a refrigerator. Now I hope that many will come and see the history of the summer 2001, the works done in a closed school out in the country by these enthusiastic artists.
 |
| Bae, Taeju |
 |
| Park, Yoonkyung |
 |
| Kim, Kyungmin |
Sep. 4th, 2001
Okreal Kim(Independent Curator)
Dream of the Shinchun
- For the 'apriority of the body' -
- For the 'apriority of the body' -
■ Place: Around Soosung Bridge over the ShinchunRiver in Daegu /
along the sidewalks and on the surface of the river
■ Display Period: Nov. 4th - 11th, 2000
■ Opening Event: Performance on environmental issues
■ Installation time: 6pm – 12am
■ Artists : Younghyuk Jung, Dongeun Lee, Boksoon Lee
■ Sponsored by: YMCA Daegu
■ Directed by: Ok-real Kim
along the sidewalks and on the surface of the river
■ Display Period: Nov. 4th - 11th, 2000
■ Opening Event: Performance on environmental issues
■ Installation time: 6pm – 12am
■ Artists : Younghyuk Jung, Dongeun Lee, Boksoon Lee
■ Sponsored by: YMCA Daegu
■ Directed by: Ok-real Kim
| Jung, Younghyuk |
 |
| Lee, Dongeun |
 |
| Lee, Boksoon |
‘Dream of the Shinchun' is a dream to all of us. This dream, transcending the border of a notional illusion, becomes a hope to secure an existential and realistic sphere in time and space and realize the ‘apriority of the body’ for the sake of environment and ecology. The theme of nature and ecology has been discussed since 1980s under the name of ‘environmental aesthetics,’ and profoundly studied since 1990s. However, the subject has been always marginalized. Although some theoretical approaches have been done to its artistic expression, there has been, and is, no effort to relate it with ecological environmental aesthetics. Up to the year 2000, the ‘apriority of the body’ have merely meant a sensor for ecological risks. A body recognized as this will be always left behind the prioritized rational decisions and would not be able to draw attention until the wounds become visible. Such body, imprisoned in isolation and oppression, will inevitably die. Nonetheless, it is impossible to prevent such phenomenon, even if we recognize the body as being nature itself and not something cut off from it.
Nov. 4th, 2000
Okreal Kim(Independent Curator)
2000----------------
PARADIGM SHIFT
 |
| Ho-deuk Kim |
■ Display Period: May 9th – 14th, 2000
■ Place: Daegu Arts Center (Halls 6, 7, 8)
■ Opening Event: Tuesday, May 9th, 5 pm-7pm (Seminar on the exhibition, Discussion with the artists)
■ Directed by: Independent Curator, Ok-real Kim
■ Artists: Ho-deuk Kim, O-bong Kwon, Myung-mi Lee, Dae-sung Kim and another
-GAME/SPACE/BODY-
Since art is obliged to mirror the reality, the idea of dismantlement was inevitably introduced and developed by contemporary art. The exhibition ‘Paradigm shift’ is an attempt to go over the problems of today’s art as we are moving into the new millennium. It suggests finding the modern solutions in a future-oriented structure. Thus it represents the earnest hope of the artists to go beyond their aesthetic mission and restore the centrality of nature and human. It also presents an ‘alternative proposal’ to the upcoming new century.
(Installation) – Dividing space into two dimensions – ‘filling’ and ‘emptying’ of the internal echoes of life and nature, Ho-deuk Kim actively utilizes the notion of space. For him, the whole space becomes a living artwork when the visitors pass in and out of it.
 |
| O-bong Kwon |
 |
| Myung-mi Lee |
(surface) – O-bong Kwon uses dynamic lines to show the interaction between color and line, which are the most basic languages of painting.
(surface) –GAME
Myung-mi Lee creates an excellent harmony of loud colors in changing forms of the frame.
(Video) – Five artists (Dae-sung Kim, Sung-min Kim, Joon-ki Na, Young-hyeok Jung, Woo-yong Jung) are engaged in video presentation to show the body as a living area of all senses, an important subject of communication, the most concrete and realistic mode of our existence, and finally the live soil of our thoughts and behavior.
May 9th, 2000
Okreal Kim(Independent Curator)
Comments
Post a Comment