Seoul-born contemporary artist Haneyl Choi produces minimalist sculptures and installations that explore the intersections of queer and Korean national identities, forging new narratives around LGBTQ visibility and culture.
Read MoreChoi holds a BFA in sculpture from Seoul National University (2016) and an MFA from the Korea National University of Art (2018).
Choi explores the non-linear narrative potential for contemporary sculpture, reconfiguring both readymade and raw materials in often humorous, lighthearted arrangements that subtly reference bodily forms and the queer experience. The artist has stated: '...as I ruminate about how the genre of sculpture has been neglected by the art world, I think about how the LGBTQ community has been largely neglected by history, too'.
For his 2018 solo exhibition Traitor's Patriotism at Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles, Choi presented contemporary iterations of byung poong, a traditional Korean folding screen. Deconstructed and subverted with bright, campy colours, bulbous forms, and confounding objects, Choi's folding screens bridge the gap between LGBTQ identities and Korean nationalism.
The translucent Expanded Folding Screen (No. 4.6)_reset (2018) features amorphous outlines, and is partially obscured with a purple and green string curtain, while Expanded Folding Screen (No. 4.5)_gastrolavage (2018) is lit up with pink and blue neon lights and adorned with fluorescent volcanic rock forms, with fake grass emerging from their tops. Estranged from their traditional context and aesthetic, Choi deconstructs the function of the byung poong as dividers of space, and explores their metaphoric inclusionary and exclusionary potential by shaping the viewer's movements within the gallery.
Choi is known for his metal sculptures. His installation From the ancient body (2021) comprised multiple minimalist metal rod forms coated in turquoise blue, bent and shaped to evoke bodies contorted in various positions.
For his 2021 presentation at Art Basel Hong Kong, Choi presented a series of abstract minimal metal sculptures, overlaid with impressions of his friends from the LGBTQ community. He stated, 'To respond to society's continuing treatment of the LGBTQ community as "abnormal", I portrayed my friends, who are living, breathing and productive, contributing members of society, as sculptures, in mundane city settings'.
Choi's 2021 solo exhibition Bulky at Arario Museum in Seoul featured an assortment of sculptures, codified in their materials, colours, or forms. Loosely visualising the culture of gay bodybuilding, Bulky immersed the viewer in an environment of candour and material excess. Andrew Russeth described in Artforum: 'The work was a heady admixture of the spiritual and the ribald—art that encourages mischievous and expansive symbolic thinking'.
For his multisite exhibition Manner (2022), Choi presented new sculptures and installations across P21 and GALLERY2 in Seoul. On the shows, Misong Kim and Valentina Buzzi wrote for Ocula Magazine: 'Challenging standardised dichotomies of softness and rigidity, realistic and surreal, conventional and non-normative, Manner presents a rich, nuanced exploration of queer and bodily representation'.
Choi was included in Apollo Magazine's '40 Under 40: Asia Pacific' list in 2022.
Haneyl Choi has presented work in solo and group exhibitions in South Korea and the United States.
Select solo exhibitions include Manner, GALLERY2, Seoul (2022); Manner, P21, Seoul (2022); Bulky, Arario Museum, Seoul (2021); Siamese, P21, Seoul (2020); Traitor's Patriotism, Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles (2018); No Shadow Saber, Hapjungjigu, Seoul (2017).
Select group exhibitions include Fanatic Heart, Para Site, Hong Kong (2022); The Other Self, Ilmin Museum of Art, Seoul (2022); Beyond the Limits, Daegu Art Factory, Daegu (2022); After Graybox: From Collecting to Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art Busan (2022); Art Basel (with P21 Gallery), Hong Kong (2021); Replicas from the yesterday, tomorrow, Culture Station Seoul 284, Seoul (2021); The Middle Land: When Time Unfolds into Land, ARKO Art Center, Seoul (2021); Lau, gh-; Nothing Needs to be a Tragedy, ONE AND J. Gallery, Seoul (2021).
Haneyl Choi's website can be found here.
Misong Kim | Ocula | 2023
