Kukje Gallery will participate in the 49th iteration of Art Basel at the Messeplatz in Basel, Switzerland, from June 14 to 17, 2018. The upcoming edition will feature over 4,000 artists represented by approximately 290 top-tier international galleries from 35 countries including Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa.
Kukje Gallery will once again participate in the Galleries sector, the main sector of the fair in which 227 international galleries will showcase critically acclaimed modern and contemporary master works spanning painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, photography, video, and digital art. Kukje Gallery will present works by leading Dansaekhwa artists including Kwon Young-Woo, Park Seo-Bo, Lee Ufan, and Ha Chong- Hyun, as well as highlight subsequent generations of Korean contemporary artists such as Kim Yong-Ik, Haegue Yang, and Kyungah Ham. The gallery's booth will also include select works by an international roster of artists such as Ghada Amer, Roy Lichtenstein, Bill Viola, Alexander Calder, Jean-Michel Othoniel, and Julian Opie.
The Kukje Gallery booth will showcase works from Haegue Yang's series Sol LeWitt Upside Down, directly referencing the seminal Minimalist artist Sol LeWitt's iconic exploration of the cube. Expanding on her signature use of Venetian blinds, Yang's smaller works of Sol LeWitt Upside Down will be hung on the booth walls; this method of installation will set the work apart from her large-scale blind installations that are currently being displayed—suspended mid-air—at several important institutions in Europe. Yang will also include works from other series including Sonic Spheres, which features kinetic sculptures festooned with metal bells. Haegue Yang was recently honored with the Wolfgang Hahn Prize and is currently the subject of a major mid-career survey exhibition at Cologne's Museum Ludwig titled Haegue Yang: ETA 1994-2018 through August 12. A comprehensive catalogue also titled ETA 1994-2018 was published in late April to commemorate this milestone exhibition. Haegue Yang will be in conversation with Yilmaz Dziewior, the Director of the Museum Ludwig, from 3pm on June 17 at the Messeplatz Hall 1.1 in Basel. The artist will discuss her action-based objects, paintings, and works on paper, along with her performative and large- scale installations.
Masterpieces by other international and Korean artists at the Kukje Gallery booth in Basel will be displayed in dialogue with one another, providing vital context. These will include iconic 'dot paintings' by Kim Yong-Ik, who has maintained an independent stance amidst Korea's dominant artistic movements by using the mediums of drawing and painting as a starting point for investigating the institutional structures and contradictions of modern art. Kim is currently featured in a solo exhibition untitled utopias at the Cahiers d'Art gallery in Paris through September 1. In conjunction with the artist's first-ever exhibition in France, Cahiers d'Art will publish a monograph in the winter of 2018 that examines Kim Yong-Ik's four-decade career. The booth will also showcase a selection of Lee Ufan's paintings from the 1980s including From Line, From Point, and With Winds. Earlier this year in February, the artist installed a sculptural commission titled Relatum-Stage (2018) outside the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens, located in London. On view through July 29, the sculpture reflects the surrounding environment of the Park, creating a subtle interplay of elements and site while seeking a balance that heightens the moment of encounter.
Other works in the booth include Kwon Young-Woo's hanji (Korean paper) works from the 1970s and 1980s, Park Seo-Bo's Ecriture series from the 1980s, new works from Ha Chong-Hyun's—who has a solo show currently on view in New York's Tina Kim Gallery—Conjunction series, and Kyungah Ham's embroidered paintings. Works by other leading international artists will include Ghada Amer's The Blue Bra Girls (2012), which was recently acquired by the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, Roni Horn's Hack Wit drawings which consist of cut-up and reassembled paper pieces, Alexander Calder's mobile titled Martigues (1966), Roy Lichtenstein's Landscape with Red Sky (1985), and paintings by Julian Opie.
Based in Seoul, Kukje Gallery is currently showing a solo exhibition of new work by the Dutch artist Joris Laarman titled Joris Laarman Lab: Gradients through June 17, along with an exhibition of Roni Horn's Remembered Words through June 30. In addition, Tina Kim Gallery is showcasing Ha Chong-Hyun's new Conjunction works in the artist's eponymous solo exhibition titled Ha Chong-Hyun, on view through June 16. Ha's first comprehensive English monograph that examines the artist's six-decade career, titled HA CHONG HYUN, was recently published by Gregory R. Miller & Co. to coincide with the exhibition opening.
Kukje Gallery represents these artists: