ARARIO GALLERY will participate in the 'Modern Women' section of FRIEZE MASTERS 2023, which will be held at The Regent's Park, London, from 11 to 15 October. The newly introduced 'Modern Women' section this year is curated by Camille MORINEAU and her co-founded 'AWARE (Archive of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions)', selecting 11 key female artists who recorded the turning points in women's rights and feminism from 1880 to 1980, curating individual booths for each.
JUNG Kangja (1942–2017), the only Asian artist among the 11 selected, plans to showcase major works from her self-portrait in 1966, before her debut, until her return to Korea in 1982.
The work To Repress (1968), which was exhibited at Hankook Ilbo in 1968, will be reproduced at the ARARIO GALLERY booth. This installation work, featuring a steel pipe placed on large pieces of cotton, symbolises the oppressed existence of women as the light cotton is weighed down by the heavy steel. This work went unnoticed during its time due to other so-called 'happening' works by JUNG, such as Transparent Balloons and Nude (1968), and Murder at the Han Riverside (1968). JUNG had requested the reproduction of this piece for her solo exhibition at ARARIO GALLERY in 2018, which she had prepared during her lifetime, but unfortunately was unable to see the reproduced work because she had passed away prior to the exhibition opening. Although JUNG never referred to herself as a 'feminist', her works overall project an awareness on feminism as well as the dynamics of gender ideologies and politics of those times.
JUNG's 'Batik' works will also be on display. Her first solo exhibition in 1970, titled Incorporeality, was forcibly removed due to its perceived socio-critical elements, leading the artist to migrate to Singapore in 1977. In Singapore, to overcome the monotonous life, JUNG learned 'Batik', an Indonesian traditional dyeing technique. Using a stamp-like tool called 'Tjap' to imprint or draw with wax on cloth, and then dyeing the unwaxed parts before removing the wax with hot water, Batik typically features complex, repetitive patterns. However, JUNG used the dyed fabric as a backdrop for her dynamic figurative paintings, with one such piece being The Room in Singapore (1979), a self-portrait visualising the inner turmoil and instability she felt in Singapore. With her Batik works, she successfully completed a group exhibition at the National Gallery Singapore in 1979 and a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara in Indonesia in 1980. She then returned to Korea in 1982 and held her solo show The Batik Exhibition in the previous Gonggan Art Space, current ARARIO MUSEUM building. In the 'Modern Women' section, a nude self-portrait drawn by the artist using Batik technique will be displayed. In the self-portrait, a girl hunches or sits rigidly. The background, filled with infinitely connected cubes or countless dots within squares, seems to erode the girl. This work, revealing 'femininity', is interpreted as a distinct expression of womanhood, differentiated from works where the artist confidently used her nude body.
JUNG Kangja was born in Daegu in 1942 and made her debut in the Korean art scene in 1967 with the Korean Young Artists Association Exhibition after graduating from Hongik University, Department of Western Painting. Active as a member of the 'New Exhibition' and 'The Fourth Group' during the 1960 and 70s, a time of strong military dictatorship and ideological confrontations, she attempted making social statements through various artistic experiments and garnered significant attention. However, due to government surveillance and sanctions after her 1970 solo exhibition Incorporeality was forcibly removed she migrated to Singapore with her family, and as a consequence for over a decade JUNG had to halt her artistic endeavours. Her social consciousness and sense of identity continued through experimental paintings after returning to Korea in 1982. Despite being diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, she devoted herself to her work until the very end.
JUNG Kangja's work was presented at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul's Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s–1970s which is currently on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and is scheduled to tour to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles early next year. Additionally, solo exhibitions are planned to be held at ARARIO GALLERY Seoul and Shanghai this coming November.
Date
Wednesday Preview, October 11 (invitation only): 11am – 7pm
Thursday Preview, October 12: (Members and invitation only preview 11am – 1pm). 1pm – 7pm general admission tickets
Friday, October 13: 11am – 7pm
Saturday, October 14: 11am – 7pm
Sunday, October 15: 11am - 6pm
Location
The Regent's Park, London
Arario Gallery represents these artists: