[Exhibition of the Week] 'Exhibition of Exhibitions' Special Exhibition · 2023 Kumho Young Artist Exhibition etc.

▲Themed Special Exhibition 'Exhibition of Exhibitions' = The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) is holding a themed special exhibition titled 'Exhibition of Exhibitions' introducing the museum's exhibitions until July 30 at the MMCA Cheongju Art Storage Center (hereafter Cheongju Branch).

Jang Un-sang, Beauty, 1956, color on silk, 79.5×82.5cm. [Photo courtesy of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art]

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The Cheongju Branch has continuously held exhibitions based on the characteristics of the art storage center. This year marks the 5th anniversary of the Cheongju Branch and the 10th anniversary of the Seoul Branch. Over the years, MMCA has held about 20 exhibitions annually, generating numerous discourses and creating the history of exhibitions. This exhibition revisits four past exhibitions held for 'commemoration' and explores the meaning of commemorating something through exhibitions. Additionally, this exhibition focuses on the 'exhibition' itself among the museum's various activities and reflects on the meaning of collecting and utilizing exhibitions differently from collecting artworks by re-exhibiting already concluded exhibitions as if they were collections.

The exhibition is divided into three parts. The first, 'Exhibition of Exhibitions: Technique,' examines various elements that must be considered to complete an exhibition. By displaying the processes and technical aspects that are not visible in a completed exhibition, it shares the process and results required to complete an exhibition. The second, 'Exhibition of Exhibitions: Commemoration,' revisits four past MMCA exhibitions themed around 'commemoration.'

Kwon Young-woo, 'Hwasilbyeolgyeon', 1956, ink and light color on paper, 154×113cm. [Photo courtesy of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art]

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In the past, museums held commemorative exhibitions for various purposes such as museum openings, liberation, artists' births and deaths, and diplomatic relations between countries. This exhibition selects and reconstructs four commemorative exhibitions held at MMCA: '100 Years of Korean Art (Part 1)' (2005) commemorating the 60th anniversary of liberation, 'Signal Fire' (2009) commemorating the 40th anniversary of the museum's opening, 'The Museum I Loved: Masterpieces of Modern Times' (2018) commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Deoksugung Branch, and 'A Day Counting Stars: Stories of You and Me' (2018) commemorating the opening of the Cheongju Branch.

The final part, 'After the Exhibition,' introduces stories left behind after exhibitions. By introducing various participants from different fields who had not been previously revealed and listening to their stories, it encourages considering different perspectives on exhibitions. Exhibiting exhibitions means either re-displaying exhibitions that have already been shown or revealing various elements that constitute the exhibition itself, such as the process and by-products. Through this special exhibition, it will provide a new opportunity to expand understanding of exhibitions by contemplating their meaning, purpose, and role, as well as listening to the stories of many people involved. The exhibition runs until July 30 at the MMCA Cheongju Art Storage Center, Cheongju, Chungbuk.

Chantal Kim, Eon Woo, Jooyoung Lee 'Misunderstood·Mistranslated·Misread Poem of Misunderstanding, Mistranslation, and Misreading' [Photo by Shinhan Gallery]

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▲Kim Shantal, Woo Joo-eon, Lee Ju-young 'Misunderstood·Mistranslated·Misread Poem' = The exhibition 'Misunderstood·Mistranslated·Misread Poem' by Lee Ju-young, Woo Joo-eon, and Kim Shantal is a curated exhibition featuring artists selected in the 2023 Shinhan Young Artist Festa group competition. The artists explore the residues of memory unmarked by any symbols, sometimes appearing as interjections, the silence before utterance, and the hesitant beginning of speech. The three artists visualize language through mixed media including drawing, installation, video, websites, and sound, highlighting the functional limits of language. Linguistic failures due to untranslatability induce distortion, omission, and disappearance, while the forgetting of memory summons voices close to the origin.

Lee Ju-young focuses on the power and hierarchy of language arising in communication among social members and the resulting status. The moment language is uttered beyond the speaker's body through the tip of the tongue gives a strong impression of the disappearance of language's essential transparency. 'Blackwater,' expressing the intrinsic power of language, reflects an absolute yet imperfect truth and showcases the artist's methodology depicting the origin of language.

Woo Joo-eon researches the origins of the sacred and the exiled and establishes the virtual community 'Little Sisters Language Window Cooperative (LSLCC)' (2020-2023), which secures a place for the non-body excluded from the mechanisms of control, surveillance, and oppression. LSLCC attempts to twist the meanings and concepts of language shaped by patriarchal customs and institutions, creating spaces where meaning collapses. The artist undertakes translation work between images and texts and between texts themselves, aiming for complete translation but intuitively recognizing the inevitability of translation failure. Performative acts such as battle-gi, embroidery, and sewing, which convert subtext into images, provoke both the possibility of complete translation and the fractures of translation as a professional translator. Misreading implies the narrative possibilities arising from the impossibility of complete translation and reflects a will that does not overlook situations where various layers of audiences are excluded.

The exhibition seeks the place of silence hidden by narrative and the place of muteness, with Lee Ju-young, Woo Joo-eon, and Kim Shantal exploring the true place of language. In an era overflowing with words, it offers a space of silence and forgetting from uncertain and loquacious language. The exhibition runs until May 9 at Shinhan Gallery, Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul.

Kumho Museum of Art is holding the '2023 Kumho Young Artist Exhibition Part 1' until the 23rd.
[Photo by Kumho Museum of Art]

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▲2023 Kumho Young Artist Part 1 = Kumho Museum of Art is holding '2023 Kumho Young Artist Exhibition Part 1' until the 23rd. The exhibition consists of solo exhibitions by three of the six artists selected in the 20th Kumho Young Artist competition program in 2022: Kim Won-jin, Cho Jae, and Jung Young-ho.

Kim Won-jin references sculptures of objects that evoke past emotions and paints thin, narrow cutouts to contemplate the incompleteness of memory. Through various forms of work based on records, the artist materializes the incomplete nature of memory lost and reconstructed in the flow of time. The artist views discarded books, letters, diaries, and other records containing stories of past times as collections of memory and transforms them into works that embody memories that cannot be restored to their original state.

Jung Young-ho contrasts the heterogeneity between color photographs of screen images and black-and-white photographs in his painting installation works to show different ways of sensing the world and their balance and relationships. Starting from questions about how technological advances affect changes in perception, the artist has attempted to understand contemporary environments through photography. Especially in today's communication environment where thoughts and information circulate more easily through digital platforms, he seeks ways to reveal invisible and heterogeneous areas beneath the surface. For example, through 3D works photographed after shaping intangible data such as opinions exchanged in online public forums into prints, he physically presents invisible properties.

Cho Jae presents sculptural installations that materialize digital images found throughout the city in the post-internet era using various industrial materials, visualizing the interaction between the internet world and the real world. The artist focuses on digital images permeating urban spaces in the so-called post-internet era, visualizing self-referential and reflective digital aesthetics. Through this, the artist presents the mimetic relationship between the digital and real worlds and questions what the dominant contemporary sensibility is. The exhibition runs until the 23rd at Kumho Museum of Art, Samcheong-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul.

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