Exhibitions to lure more art fans in 2012

By Kwon Mee-yoo

Plenty of art exhibitions are expected to please art lovers this year as many museums and galleries are presenting talented Korean artists working both domestically and overseas along with contemporary international masters.

Korean talents

Installation artist Suh Do-ho will hold a solo exhibition at Leeum, the Samsung Museum of Art from March to June. He will be the first living Korean artist to ever exhibit in the Leeum.

Suh is expected to present new works as it is his first Korean exhibition since 2006. Suh’s signature series on “hanok,” or Korean traditional houses such as “Fallen Star 1/5” and “Home Within Home” is expected to be on display. His works are based on Oriental spirituality and a Korean identity, yet expressed in a modern, universal way.

He represented Korea in the 2001 Venice Biennale and now divides his time between New York and Seoul.

Lee Bul will come to Artsonje Center in September after having an exhibition at Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Japan. She rose to stardom after displaying sequin-encrusted rotting fish in her work “Majestic Splendor” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1997.

Also in September, Kim Soo-ja, well-known for her “Bottari” series, will hold a solo exhibition at Kukje Gallery.

Gallery Hyundai kicked off the year with a retrospective of Kim Whan-ki, who led the abstract modernism movement in Korea. Scheduled next is an exhibition of artist Kim Chong-hak, commemorating the release of a series of letters he exchanged with his daughter, in May.

Plateau named Bae Young-hwan as promising artist of the year and will exhibit his works from March to May. The talented artist mainly deals with the modern history of Korea through subject matters such as popular songs.

International art feast

Koreans will also have the opportunity to feast on the works by various international artists.

One of the most controversial, challenging artists in the world, Paul McCarthy, will have an exhibition at Kukje Gallery in Seoul from March. McCarthy is known for a wide range of works from painting and sculpture to installation and media art. He satirizes politics and war and expresses sexual items graphically. Though some of his works are bestial and grotesque, he represents a trend in contemporary art.

Kukje Gallery will also hold exhibits of Louise Bourgeois and Alexander Calder in the second half of the year.

In October, Leeum will host Indian artist Anish Kapoor’s first exhibition in Korea. Kapoor is known for meditative artworks combining Eastern and Western culture.

Works of the late Felix Gonzalez Torres, the Cuban-born American artist, will be on display at Plateau from June to September. The gallery said it will exhibit some works on the street of Taepyeong-no in front of the gallery to communicate with more spectators.

PKM Trinity Gallery in Cheongdam-dong is scheduled to host exhibitions of Olafur Eliasson in April and Hernan Bas in June.

The National Museum of Contemporary Art will hold a major exhibition reviewing the history and contemporary art of China from November to February 2013, celebrating the 20th anniversary of diplomatic ties between Korea and China.

Autumn will be the season of biennales — the ninth Gwangju Biennale will be held from Sept. 7 to Nov. 11, while the seventh Seoul International Media Art Biennale is scheduled from Sept. 11 to Nov. 4.

This year’s Gwangju Biennale will collect different perspectives on power, which exist in any social, political or cultural context, under the theme of “Round Table.”