[Exhibitions of the Week] Kwon Sun-ik Solo Exhibition 'My Today' · Ahmed Manan Solo Exhibition and More

Editor's NoteThis week's exhibitions introduce a variety of attractive shows from across the country that can be experienced over the course of one week.

▲Ahmed Mannan Solo Exhibition 'Where is this place? What is that? Who are you!' = Gallery MIM presents Ahmed Mannan's first solo exhibition in Korea, titled 'Where is this place? What is that? Who are you!'.

Mother and Siblings, 2024, oil on canvas, 162x162cm
[Photo by Gallery MIM]

The exhibition showcases early works focusing on the identity conflicts the artist inevitably faced as a mixed-race individual living in Japan, alongside recent works that weave everyday images salvaged from cellphone photos into a narrative. Ahmed Mannan translated the Japanese title 'ここどこやねん、それいつやねん、お前誰やねん', which is in the Osaka dialect where he was born, into the Busan dialect to give Korean audiences a more familiar feeling. The countless photos stored on cellphones are ephemeral records easily forgotten, but the artist gives new meaning by recalling, layering, and transforming these ordinary scenes of daily life onto his canvases.

Born to a Pakistani father and a Japanese mother, Ahmed Mannan continuously explores the communication imbalance arising between the Islamic doctrines that form the foundation of his identity and the Japanese culture in which he was born and raised. He reveals how religious doctrines and related practices cause discord between individuals and groups through a unique sensibility and vivid colors. The world he faces as both a Japanese and an outsider is sometimes irrational and oppressive, the artist says. He experienced many difficulties at school and in social life due to religious prohibitions against pork, and when later attending family funerals, he unquestioningly accepted the Japanese cremation customs despite religious requirements for burial. However, these cultural clashes and identity confusions led the artist to deeply contemplate diversity, speak about himself, and continuously experiment to connect these experiences to his artistic world.

The me watching myself getting my hair cut through the mirror is being watched by the audience. 2023, oil on canvas, 72.7x60.6cm. Photo by Gallery MIM

Ahmed Mannan's works captivate viewers with their intensity. The combination of rough, unrefined forms and contrasting colors emits a raw feeling, while distorted human figures evoke a peculiar curiosity. The eerie atmosphere is created by unique narratives that blur the boundaries between reality and imagination, featuring strange interactions among figures, animals and objects resembling mythical beings, and illogical story structures, yet they also charmingly reveal a pure sensibility. Contemporary life, connected to everything in the world, shines perfectly for all, but everyone also harbors their own intimate inner self. Ahmed Mannan cheerfully exposes unadorned human figures, sometimes grotesque, sometimes bizarre.

This exhibition comprises works that trace the journey of identity, from early pieces addressing difficulties caused by identity defined through food to recent works inspired by images taken with smartphones. Photography is an important means of recording personal daily life and social experiences, proving one's existence there. Thus, looking at photos stored on his phone, whose time, place, and reasons are unknown, the artist often asks himself, “Where is this place? What is that? Who are you?”. Because the memories are unclear, he intentionally distorts and transforms them by adding or obscuring images on the photos. For the artist, this process is not merely a reconstruction of memory but another experiment attempting a new self-image toward the ambiguous identity he has lived with. The exhibition runs until July 28 at Gallery MIM, Insadong 5-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul.

Hyun Bhin Kwon, Humming Facades, 2023, Marble, ink, 29.7×20.8×2cm [Photo by Whistle Gallery]

▲Group Exhibition 'My Sky Your Sky' = Whistle Gallery presents the group exhibition 'My Sky Your Sky'. The exhibition is based on the idea that the sky looks different depending on an individual's situation or location, focusing on the different impressions artists have when looking at the same subject. Although the artists work with different media and themes, the exhibition highlights the reason their works harmonize by introducing the pieces through a dialogue format using three keywords: subject, practice, and sensation.

Painter Lee Hae-min, sculptor Kwon Hyun-bin, and photographer Lee Min-ji work with different media and themes, but their works are grouped under the keywords subject, practice, and sensation. The exhibition guide, presented as a dialogue between curators and artists, is particularly interesting. Painter Lee Hae-min, who paints on photographic paper that absorbs paint quickly and is difficult to correct once applied, continuously studies the surface. He presents works connected to his long-standing themes of “light and fragile objects, temporarily placed and abandoned objects, and things that endure.”

Minji Yi, Moonlight Panorama, 2024, Archival pigment print, 144x111cm. [Photo by Whistle Gallery]

Sculptor Kwon Hyun-bin, who is devoted to sculpture, repeatedly carves straight lines with a very thin stone carving knife into marble slabs that appear fragile and delicate like Styrofoam, creating geometric patterns. He then applies blue ink, which gradually fades and disappears over time, emphasizing a contrasting image between the heavy nature of stone and the ephemeral quality of the pigment, an intriguing aspect of his work.

Photographer Lee Min-ji presents works tracing traces of time in places related to her own history. This time, her destination is Socheongdo Island in Incheon, where she stayed for a long period and drew inspiration from its unique fossilized terrain to capture unfamiliar scenes. She demonstrates an exploratory spirit by substituting photographic processes with other materials such as photosensitive work and frottage.

While each artist follows their own trajectory, their shared pursuit of exploring the invisible within the visible evokes rich impressions and allows for diverse interpretations. The exhibition runs until July 13 at Whistle Gallery, 13-gil, Hoenamu-ro, Yongsan-gu, Seoul.

‘Mua (無我) - Simgyeong (心鏡)’
Photo by Whitestone Gallery Seoul

▲Kwon Soon-ik Solo Exhibition 'My Today Today' = Whitestone Gallery Seoul presents Kwon Soon-ik's solo exhibition 'My Today (Today)'. This exhibition encompasses his artistic world, featuring abstract series such as 'Mu-a (無我)' and 'Jeok·Yeon (積·硏)_Gap', which explore the formal elements of point, line, and plane, as well as installation works using roof tiles as the main material. It deeply illuminates the artist's artistic journey spanning over 30 years.

The 'Mu-a (無我)' series, emphasizing the element of 'point,' involves painting small circles in various hues on canvas, then layering fine sand mixed with paint on top to create a unique texture that blends flatness and three-dimensionality. In Buddhist philosophy, 'Mu-a (無我)' refers to the concept that there is no eternal, independent self. For the artist, it is reinterpreted as becoming one with the canvas and immersing himself in the work while emptying the ego. The exhibition presents new large-scale works demonstrating the infinite expansion and variation of points, adding spatial depth and harmony through diverse color planes.

The 'Jeok·Yeon (積·硏)_Gap' series, highlighting 'line' and 'plane,' features a complex structure integrating past, present, and future temporalities. 'Jeok (積)' refers to the process of layering paint, symbolizing the time, experience, and past the artist has accumulated. 'Gap' is the space formed between these paint layers, where the artist rubs graphite and polishes it through the 'Yeon (硏)' process, expressing a dark yet luminous unique texture.

‘回回(Hoehoe)’ [Photo by Whitestone Gallery Seoul]

Through this, the artist emphasizes the importance of the present that connects past and future, conveying a message to realize the moment in the continuous flow of time. Since 2018, the artist's roof tile installation works have featured rubbing graphite onto tiles to emphasize form and texture. For the artist, the roof tile is a 'Sim-gyeong (心鏡),' a mirror of the mind, representing another element of the self.

The method of rubbing graphite and repeatedly painting demonstrates the artist's sincerity and craftsmanship as an internal discipline. The artist transforms the rough texture of graphite into a shining new material after long, arduous work, proving his own philosophy about 'today,' which he has realized through long cultivation. The exhibition runs until July 21 at Whitestone Gallery, 70 Sowol-ro, Yongsan-gu, Seoul.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.