Opened in 2016 in the center of Seoul, Barakat Contemporary is an exhibition space where visitors can appreciate and anticipate the contemporary art that must be taken note of worldwide today. Barakat Contemporary focuses on in-depth research and planning into the important topics in international society and contemporary art, presenting to the domestic and international audience artists who show a humanities-based perspective on the present era. The gallery supports the long-term growth of unique artists from various cultures, including Africa, America, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, and offers audiences an uncommon opportunity to explore the contemporary issues arising from the points of contact between each society and culture.
Read MoreBarakat Contemporary is the only contemporary art branch of the Barakat Gallery, which features some 40,000 museum quality artifacts spanning various times and regions.
Looking ahead, Barakat Contemporary will continue to combine the ancient and modern to create a new future for contemporary art.
Barakat Contemporary Artists
Barakat Contemporary introduces the most significant international artists of diverse origins to Korea and international audiences, featuring the unique aesthetics and variety of experimental media present in their work. Among the artists showcased at Barakat Contemporary is Nigerian-based El Anatsui, whose sculptures are made by stringing together thousands of the metal bottle caps consumed in Nigeria. Wael Shawky, Shezad Dawood, Nicky Nodjoumi, and Hassan Hajjaj examine and reflect on the most pressing issues of our era. The work of international Korean artist Yunchul Kim, a recipient of the COLLIDE International award, focuses on the material world. Peles Empire experiments with historical and cultural hybrids in their work through the process of endless copying and repetition.
At Barakat Contemporary in Seoul, Fiona Banner, aka The Vanity Press, reflects the 'powerlessness of a human annus horribilis'.
Mohammad Salemy reviews the 58th Venice Biennale, May You Live In Interesting Times (11 May–24 November 2019), where 'Lithuania demonstrated how it is possible to be both socially relevant while pulling off one of the most likeable national pavilions in recent memory.'
'I have felt persecuted for weeks by this same asphyxiating dream.' So narrates the forlorn Portuguese speaker in Kiluanji Kia Henda's film, Concrete Affection – Zopo Lady (2014), as city scenes and modernist buildings in Luanda flit past the camera's lens. The narration is pulled from Another Day of Life (1971), Polish writer Ryszard...
Visitors arriving in the courtyard of Somerset House for 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair (5–8 October 2017) were greeted by a large work by Pascale Marthine Tayou entitled Summer Surprise (2017). In this site-specific installation, wooden spears crisscrossed by colourful cobblestones made up a structure that sat atop the Edmond J. Safra...
Chung Seoyoung, who is putting on a solo show in Korea for the first time in four years, has filled the gallery space with mysterious objects, as usual.
The artists are El Anatsui, Byung Hoon Choi, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Olafur Eliasson, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Cristina Iglesias and Ai Weiwei, and they were commissioned to create a mix of sculptures, light installations and suspended artworks for the 14-acre premises, known as the Susan and Fayez S. Sarofim Campus.
The cover photograph for the informative catalogue that accompanies this dazzling show was taken by Hans Namuth and catches Robert Motherwell and Helen Frankenthaler at their wedding lunch on April 6, 1958. Her look is all love; Motherwell, averting his gaze from Namuth, has a vacant, slightly ironic expression. Was it because he'd already been...
Modernist architecture is still a big focus for artists – as long as its Eurocentric and male-dominated history can be rewritten while its buildings are celebrated. Frieze Live is one of the fair's main curated sections, and this year it features British artist Shezad Dawood's performance piece. Dawood's work draws on the work of Bangladeshi...
El Anatsui has carved a name for himself with his monumental hanging sculptures made with recycled metal scraps. As imposing and spectacular as they are fragile and portable, these works have been exhibited in some of the world's most prestigious institutions, most recently at Munich's Haus der Kunst and in the Venice Biennale's first Ghana...
In this video, Ghana's best-known contemporary artist, El Anatsui, speaks about the role that language and symbols play in his work. He describes how the abstract nature of West African "adinkra" symbols and the flexibility of meaning in the words of his native language of Ewe resonate with the concept of non-fixity and indeterminateness...
