Kiaf SEOUL 2022: Advisory Selections
Running between 3 and 6 September 2022, Kiaf SEOUL brings 164 galleries to the South Korean capital. Combining emerging and established galleries, with artworks from across the last few decades, the fair presents a unique blend of historical avant-garde pieces with contemporary work. Below is a selection of works that caught our attention.
Minoru Onoda at Anne Mosseri-Marlio Galerie
As an important member of the Japanese avant-garde Gutai Group, Minoru Onoda was motivated by the group's interest in exploring materials in order to 'concretely comprehend abstract space'.
For Anne Mosseri-Marlio Galerie's Kiaf SEOUL presentation, the gallery is showing a selection of the artist's historical paintings from between 1960 and 1980. Onoda, one of the younger members of the Gutai Group, focused on the circle as a means of exploring the interrelationship between human beings and their surroundings.
In 2013, Onoda was included in an important retrospective on the Gutai Group at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Looking ahead, solo exhibitions of Onoda's work will open at the National Museum of Art and Nakanoshima Museum of Art, both in Osaka, in the next couple of months.
Nam June Paik at Galerie Bhak
In celebration of the 90th anniversary of the late Nam June Paik's birth, Galerie Bhak present Satellite (1995).
Creating work that was way ahead of its time, Sam Gaskin underlined in Ocula News that 'Paik was distinguished by his wide-ranging enthusiasm. He was a futurist, a philosopher of aesthetics, an electronic engineer, and a composer. He embraced pop culture and cutting-edge technology, things artists often find suspicious'.
Over in New York, the artist's exhibition Art in Process: Part Two at Gagosian's Park & 75 location, which was curated by John G. Hanhardt—who organised his 1982 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art and Solomon R. Guggenheim retrospective in 2006—is now in its final week.
South Korean artist Jaeseok Lee received both his BFA and MFA in Fine Arts from Mokwon University, Daejeon.
Comprising eerily dark backdrops, Jaeseok Lee brings the intangible qualities of existence, including the atmospheric activity of the sun and the moon, as well as physical and mental experiences, into distinct formal arrangements.
Having featured in a number of solo exhibitions in South Korea, including the country's trailblazing gallery ThisWeekendRoom, Jaeseok Lee's work can also be found in a selection of the country's top institutional collections including the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; and Daejeon Museum of Art.
The experience of confinement during Covid-19 is reflected in Huh Suyon's glass box titled Quarantine.
Featuring a bunch of flowers made of hanji, a form of traditional Korean paper made of mulberry tree bark, within a glass box, Suyon's work reflects the different effects produced through certain material combinations.
Having majored in Korean Painting at Ewha Woman's University in Seoul, Suyon now lives and works in the South Korean capital.
Suejin Chung at Lee Eugean Gallery
Lee Eugean Gallery feature this unique composition by young artist Suejin Chung in their Kiaf SEOUL presentation.
Comprising a red rose, five planks of wood, a scrunched piece of paper, and a man in a contemplative position sitting beneath a cloud, the painting feeds into the artist's interest in providing visual metaphors for the complexities of human consciousness.
Chung's artistic career started at Hongik University in Seoul, where she received a BFA, later receiving her MFA in the U.S. at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Rebecca Ackroyd at Peres Projects
Living and working between London and Berlin, Rebecca Ackroyd creates surrealistic images by abstracting body parts and other objects and forms.
Hair features frequently as subject matter, threading through unique shapes, as in the case of the light-blue globular or bone-like structures in this gouache and soft pastel painting.
Alongside the fair, a solo exhibition of the artist's work is also on view at the gallery's Seoul space, presenting new works on paper alongside two sculptures.
Marking her first solo exhibition in Asia, the show explores the infrastructure of the subconscious, and the subterranean workings of memory. Fertile Ground will be on view from 30 August until 13 October 2022.
Anne Buckwalter at Rachel Uffner Gallery
Anne Buckwalter creates whimsical portrayals of erotic fantasy, combining floral wallpapers and windows looking onto pastoral vistas, with sexual objects such as BDSM props and condoms perched on tables and strewn on wooden floors.
Painting domestic interiors, inspired by the folk art of her Dutch Pennsylvania heritage, Buckwalter fuses disparate objects in a bid to explore female identity. Relatively small in size, her paintings provide intimate windows into themes including intimacy and gender roles.
After completing her BFA at Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Philadelphia, Buckwalter went on to receive an MFA from Maine College of Art & Design in Portland.
Main image: Minoru Onoda, WORK67-12 (1967). Oil, gofun and glue on plywood. 91/9 x 91.7 x 8cm. Framed: 93.7 x 93.7 x 6cm. Courtesy Anne Mosseri-Marlio Galerie.
