Keeping It Real: Korean Artists in the Age of Multi-­Media Representation

February 3, 2012 - May 12, 2012

Opening Reception February 2, 2012, 6-­8pm with a major related symposium February 4, 2012 in ATLAS 100. Further details about the symposium to be announced.

Curated by J.P. Park, Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Colorado Boulder

This exhibition comments on the contemporary state of South Korean art by offering a unique and unprecedented opportunity to experience new art forms pioneered by emerging Korean artists working in Seoul, New York, and Europe. The artists in this exhibition lead us into a mysterious, ironic, and hybrid reality, a reality that completely challenges our perceptions of the world as we are conditioned to think about it. The works on view are a series of dialogues that illuminate conjunctures between real life and fantasy which present objects and human behaviors through a creative and conceptual kaleidoscope. The virtual reality in their art—a hyper-­reality materialized in scientific, technological, and global idioms—unerringly subverts our intellectual, experienced, and intuitive knowledge about art and society. These artists belong to a new generation, born since the tumultuous social and political phase of modern Korean society subdued; without the Cold War, without riot police, yet possessing access to the larger world via the internet, opportunities to travel abroad, and products promoted locally by global corporations. The exhibition features photography, video, site-­specific installation, and sculpture and includes the work of eight artists including:

Kyung Woo Han
Yong-­ho Ji
Yeondoo Jung
Shin-­il Kim
Sun K. Kwak
Hyungkoo Lee
Jaye Rhee
Kiwoun Shin

This exhibition is generously supported in part by the NBT Charitable Trust, the HBB Foundation, Arts Council Korea, Wayne F. Yakes, MD, the CU Art Museum benefactors and members, as well as by the CU Boulder Student Arts and Cultural Enrichment (ACE) fees. Additional funding for the related symposium is generously provided by the James and Rebecca Roser Visiting Artist Program and the Center for Asian Studies, University of Colorado Boulder.