Amelia Johnson Contemporary presents the second solo exhibition of Korean artist, Lee Sanghyun. The artist's recent photographs and videos continue his previous explorations of histories and mythologies crossing time and space to present a diachronic viewpoint which considers the present by looking through the past. The works are exhibited as a narrative series entitled, “Tales of a Drunken Voyage to Pubyok Pavilion” and depict scenes of historical allegories playing out in landscapes that the artist appropriates from documentary photographs and paintings of Pyongyang from the Joseon period. Lee’s stories cast a humorous irony over past and present and are inspired by the history of Korea as a divided nation, issues that have arisen from the penetration of capitalism in North Korea and the artist’s own perspective as a time traveler looking into North Korea.
Lee's digitally montaged imagery is made in vivid, bright pop colours depicting fictitious and historical scenes, designer logos, juxtaposing past and present, rational and irrational, mass culture and traditional landscapes, good and bad, male and female. He makes references to consumerism as a form of religion and the hypocrisy of North Korea’s desire to forge diplomatic relations with the West. This mesmerizing series of ironical landscapes raises questions about the atmosphere in North Korea, the infiltration of Western ideals that consumerism can create and the challenges this may present within the socialist structire, as well as the complex relationship between North and South Korea, how this may evolve and what it could look like in the future.
About the artist:
Lee Sanghyun has been awarded many residencies and grants including the ISCP in New York and the International residency of Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Korea. His photography, video installations, films and performances have been exhibited extensively in Asia, the Middle East and Germany. Lee Sanghyun lives and works in Seoul, Korea.
Image: © Lee Sanghyun, Amelia Johnson Contemporary
