ARARIO GALLERY will be participating in Art Basel Hong Kong 2023 from March 21 to 25. This year, along with the main booth in the Galleries sector, ARARIO GALLERY will hold a showcase in the Kabinett sector with Lottery Village, one of the most representative works by Korea's first-generation experimental artist, KIM Soun-Gui.
As one of the leading artists of modern Korean experimental art, KIM Soun-Gui first introduced experimental performance art and conceptual art to the Korean art scene in the late 1960s. From the start of her career, KIM incorporated philosophy and technology into her experimental practice in the form of various genres such as video, multimedia, sound art, performance, photography, and drawing.
The artist backpacked around the world, exploring both the art and culture of the East and the West. Especially during her stay in New York, she worked closely with video artists such as Nam June Paik, Ko Nakajima, Ira Schneider, and Frank Gillette, and starting from the late 1980s, she presented works that confronted issues relating to the structural changes in society caused by the spread of global capitalism and the Internet. She carried on to produce the Stock Exchange project—taking on a critical viewpoint of civilisation in which the value of capital takes priority over all other values—and carried out interviews with world-renowned aestheticians, including Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy, to discuss the role of art in the neoliberal society.
Lottery Village (1999), which will be presented in the Kabinett sector, is one of the artist's most representative works created around this time of her life. The artist constructed houses and buildings from cardboard, covering each surface with discarded lottery tickets. From individual houses to enormous skyscrapers, each of the buildings comes together to form a 'lottery village.' This work brings to light the unfortunate reality of modern society in which economic value takes precedence over all other values through the visualisation of a society buried in lottery tickets and exposes the guilt of individuals forever bound to societal expectations.
KIM Soun-Gui, who lives and works in France, recently held her solo exhibition at ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany (2022) and the National Museum for Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea (2019) and will be participating in the 14th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, Korea, later this year.
For the Galleries sector (Booth 1B18), ARARIO GALLERY will focus on introducing works representative of contemporary Asian art. Buen CALUBAYAN from the Philippines, Eko NUGROHO from Indonesia, Kohei NAWA from Japan, and Subodh GUPTA, a leading artist in the Indian contemporary art scene who recently revealed a large-scale installation piece at Le Bon Marché department store, Rive Gauche, Paris, France will participate. New and recent works by Chinese artists, including HUANG Yuanqing, JING Shijian, and LIANG Manqi, who recently had a solo exhibition at ARARIO GALLERY Shanghai, will also be on view. Works by Korean artists who are currently active in their practice, such as CHOI Byungso, LEE Jinju, NOH Sangho, and UM Tai-Jung, who is currently having a solo exhibition at ARARIO MUSEUM in SPACE, Seoul, Korea, will be included in this year's presentation as well.Moreover, works by JUNG Kangja, who is scheduled to be presented in the touring group exhibition The Avant-Garde: Experimental Art in South Korea, 1960s-70s opening at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea, and traveling to the Guggenheim, New York and the Hammer Museum, LA, USA, will also be presented at the booth. Currently, her performance work is being exhibited in the group exhibition, Action, Gesture, Performance: Feminism, the Body and Abstraction at Whitechapel Gallery in London, UK, and will be included in her solo exhibition at ARARIO MUSEUM in SPACE this spring.
Private View (by invitation only)
Tuesday, March 21, 12 noon to 8pm
Wednesday, March 22, 12 noon to 5pm
Thursday, March 23, 12 noon to 2pm
Friday, March 24, 12 noon to 2pm
Saturday, March 25, 11am to 12 noon
Vernissage
Wednesday, March 22, 5pm to 9pm
Show Hours
Thursday, March 23, 2pm to 8pm
Friday, March 24, 2pm to 8pm
Saturday, March 25, 12 noon to 6pm