DOOSAN Gallery Seoul is pleased to present the DOOSAN Curator Workshop Exhibition BONUP: Art as Livelihood.

BONUP: Art as Livelihood examines the lives of young Korean artists in their 20s-30s. The everyday lives of the "880,000 won generation," characterized by an apprehension of the future due to unstable employment conditions, are no different from those of artists who belong to the same generation. Through the artworks of four artists-Yongju Kwon, Andeath, Soosung Lee, and Woosung Lee-who dwell within the ambiguous boundary between their art practices (day jobs) and the part-time jobs that are their means of livelihood, this exhibtion presents images of young artists disrupting social order and expanding their art practices by independently interpreting the conditions of their lives. 

Yongju Kwon expresses the equivocal feelings emerging from his position in between two seemingly conflicting jobs-a maker of art and a supporting laborer for other artists' exhibitions-as well as the involuntary shudder that arises as his artwork and daily life impassively face one other in his "all-powerful wall," which is itself intimately linked to his side job, exhibition design. Woosung Lee simultaneously portrays the image of a solid wall and a shifting and uncomfortable situation in a "big painting" embodying his endeavor to create a work that is intentionally impractical with regard to monetary resources, time, and scale; in other words, it is his attempt to transcend his own constrained circumstances rather than to accept them. Andeath, who began her career as a designer, depicts the process of expanding her hobby of "wearing different clothes each day" into the realm of art practice, and presents a showcase for her new fashion business that will begin following this exhibition. Soosung Lee's work in this exhibition functions to support and augment the other participating artists' artworks, though it is itself unlikely to be noticed. Fittingly, hanging on his designated wall are merely an assortment of notes and drawings that appear to attest to the labor he performed in the course of his side job, exhibition design.

*image (left)
XX club, 2011
c-print, 101x127cm
© Andeath
courtesy of the artist and Doosan Gallery