DOOSAN Gallery New York is pleased to announce “The Construction of Ruins,” a solo exhibition of Ji Eun Kim, one of the Third Annual DOOSAN Artist Award.

Ji Eun Kim depicts construction sites, she has seen while doing residencies in South Korea and other countries around the world. These structures that are built with the pretext of fast urban development are either quickly erected or demolished depending on the circumstance or necessity of the region. The constructed structures in Kim's work is the "site of incident," and their creation and destruction process shows that these buildings are no different from other capitalist mass produced goods and that the production of contemporary art is also not exempt from this process.

This exhibition features representative works from the artist's oeuvre that best brings out Kim's artistic world and vision. is an installation composed of contact paper and 2x4 lumber that depict a typical construction site of a house as seen in the suburbs of Detroit. This work makes one rethink and reconsider capitalism, its prevalent consumption trends and the essence of contemporary art through the temporary fates of houses that are endlessly being built and demolished. Through depicting Seoul, a city that is constantly developing with the task of rehabilitating from devastation of past wars, Kim's , made with black and white contact paper, attempts to show contemporary life and the systems that are behind it.

Ji Eun Kim (b. 1977) received her M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art, and M.F.A. and B.F.A. from Seoul National University. She has had solo exhibitions at Gallery Absinthe (2012, Seoul, Korea), Alternative Space Loop (2011, Seoul, Korea), Brain Factory (2010, Seoul, Korea), and Insa Art Space (2005, Seoul, Korea). Her works have also been included in group exhibitions at Total Museum of Contemporary Art (2013, Seoul, Korea), Leeum (2012, Seoul, Korea), Dean Project (2012, New York, NY, U.S.A), URS27 (2011, Taipei, Taiwan), Ilmin Museum of Art (2010, Seoul, Korea), art space pool (2009, Seoul, Korea), and Seoul Museum of Art (2007, Seoul, Korea).

*image (left)
Installation View at Alternative Space Loop