Since 2007 the SOMA has launched a biannual project to shed new light on artists. The museum invited Kim Joo-Ho, Lee Kun-Yong, and Pahk Hahn-Jin to its exhibition titled Restless Hand, Wandering Mind in 2007 and Shin Sung Hy and Han Soon Ja - who had worked in France - to Re-Discovery in 2009. The purpose of such exhibitions is to re-illuminate the world of senior artists who have persistently cleft to their own distinctive art without being influenced by any commercial application. These artists invited are limited to "senior" for convenience sake, but their passion for art is as great as that of young artists. The show is subtitled with Deep Breaths, which has two-fold meaning: catching one's breath after exhausting work, and heralding the beginning of restless creation. as time slips by, these artists have accumulated years of experience and born abundant fruit, lending generosity to their verve.
Cha Sup Kim has been selected as Korean representative artist at 5th Paris Biennale in 1967, and studied at Pratt Institute in New York after. With etching skills he learned, a composition by 'a gravelly field' and 'triangle' helped him to settle down in the art market in New York, and he has been well-known with 'signature style' before chaining work process to self-portrait in neo-expressionism in 1983-4. As showing wide spectrum through various experiments, Cha Sup Kim has created many self-portraits and other works based on his interests in civilization, humanity, and geopolitics. Most of his drawings will be on view in the exhibition for the first time.
Su Chun Jeon's recent works will be announced in the exhibition. His topic is civilization and a change of life derived from the age of mechanical reproduction. While reproduction caused material affluence and an accumulation of capital, people pursue and desire for fiction. With this problem, the artist show new installation 'aura of time travel.' He experiments aura as open world reacting to people's interest, taste, experience, memory, values and ethical attitude.
Ae Gyu Han's many works are inspired by his life. Unlike other artists, he has talked about experiences in a daily life with contemplating his life, and generous view of introspection. He shows a space in ruins in a form of installation. Remembering ruins, he creates terra-cotta. The artist suggests to think about circulation of life and death, civilization and ruins, and verticality and horizontality.
*image (left)
Su Chun Jeon
Time Travel, 2014
car, transparent screen, projector, DiVX player, dimensions variable
courtesy of the artist
