Your Present
Group exhibition
: Ji Hye Yeom, Hee min Chung, Sang-ah Choi and Hyn-Sook Hong Lee
, Pace Gallery, Seoul 2022
Pace is pleased to present Your Present, a group exhibition featuring work by intergenerational Korean artists working across a wide range of media, at its recently expanded gallery in Seoul.
Bringing together works by Ji Hye Yeom, Heemin Chung, Sang-ah Choi, and Hyun-Sook Hong Lee, the show, installed in a new ground-floor exhibition space equipped for immersive, experiential artworks, will be on view from June 17 to July 23.
The gallery’s presentation of Your Present aligns with its commitment to foregrounding exhibitions of work by Korean artists as part of its program in Seoul. The exhibition will feature new and recent drawings, paintings, and video works by the four participating artists, who utilize both physical and virtual mediums to tell stories about the current state of the world and their relationships to the present moment. The artworks in the exhibition meditate on the connections and gaps between the inner self and the external, often unpredictable forces that impact the landscape of one’s life.
Yeom, who has examined the effects of colonialism, capitalism, environmental exploitation, and viruses in her practice, will present a video titled Symbioplot (2020) in the exhibition. In Symbioplot, Yeom imagines what a symbiotic, connective power among all life on the Earth might look like. Featuring otherworldly, mesmeric renderings of plant life and the sky, the work is engaged with the artist’s interest in human perception and futuristic phenomena.
Featuring two paintings by Chung, Your Present puts the artist’s interest in experimentation and experientiality on full view. Chung’s paintings, some of which incorporate light boxes, reflect her unique ability to unite traditional and digital media. Her painting When Our Palm Line Meets (2021), which figures in Pace’s exhibition, features acrylic, gel, and surgical steel chain on canvas. With compositions of this kind, the artist layers forms and materials as part of her exploration of the relationship between digital images and painting.
Choi’s work often explores feelings of alienation stemming from her 1997 move from Korea to the United States. Pace’s exhibition includes a suite of dynamic new drawings by the artist—incorporating acrylic, graphite, and cut-outs—as well as a video featuring a sketchbook of the works. The video highlights the ways that each work in the series relates to and coheres with the others, creating a sense of movement and mutability among the drawings. In her work, Choi finds inspiration in Greek mythology, American and Korean popular culture, and Korean historical painting—specifically Sip- Jang Saeng Do. Rife with symbols and allusions, her drawings require close and thoughtful looking from viewers.
Hong Lee is a renowned eco-feminist artist who has addressed social and environmental issues in her practice for the past three decades, using visual art as a means to shed light on oppressive, patriarchal systems and structures. The artist’s video What You Are Touching Now (2020), which figures in Your Present, exemplifies her interest in symbiosis between humans, the natural world, and inanimate objects. Created during the pandemic, What You Are Touching Now includes narration by the artist herself, who describes the experience of touching a granite sculpture at the Seungga Temple in Bukhansan. With this work, Hong Lee uses audio and filmed footage of the sculpture to evoke an immersive, sensory experience for viewers.
