Beijing Commune is pleased to announce the opening of “Scenographic Imagination” on July 20, 2019. Featuring artists Baek Kyungho, Han Sungwoo, Lee Sejun, Nam Jinwoo, Park Kyungryul and RohwaJeong, the show is organized by Space Willing N Dealing and will run until September 6, 2019.
The title “Scenographic imagination” refers to the unique set of sceneries the works create together that awakes all kinds of senses. Taken inspiration from the theatrical canon, where both the senses of time and space play an essential role in the artists’ creative processes, the show channels the definination of a multidisciplinary artist proposed in Darwin Reid Payne’s same title on theater criticism, as someone equipped with a special vision “spanning all the arts” that extend and amplify underlying meanings of the production. Intentionally blurring the line between reality and unreality, each work itself a carefully-constructed labyrinth out of the artist’s imagination that induces a sense of beguilement while its material and immaterial elements are well balanced on the surface of the canvas.
The show aims to introduce a roster of contemporary Korean artists, both emgering and established, to the Chinese audience.Taking their observation and extensive research as their starting point and sources of continual learning, these artists employ painting as their main medium to explore a wide variety of themes. They constantly experiement with different ways in which the abstract interplay between paintings and time and space could bring the paintings to life on the wall. Their diverse techniques and methods, as demonstrated in these clearest examples of their impulse to extend the realm of pictorial practice, pursue the questionning of conventional understanding of painting as a genre and continue to push its boundaries on several fronts.
Baek Kyungho superimposes multiple canvases, on which he paints non-figurative images taken from smart phones, wallpapers, comic books and raw canvases wrapped in vinyl using rough and intuitive brushstrokes, in a composition reminiscent of a concrete shape. Han Sungwoo’s massive 8-meter high canvas constitutes a collection of puzzle with 37 individual abstract paintings. The artist’s recent took on the investigation of the flatness and materiality of painting found its way into the finished artworks along with rough matiére on the surface. Lee Sejun takes images found in daily life and the news out of their original context to generate a highly-saturated hetereogenous landscape. Through this process, Lee focuses on the discrepancy between the abstract all-encompassing world and the reality they reflect. In contrast to the traditional bigatory of good and evil, Nam Jinwoo chooses to portray the mysterious mollusk, ‘the Giant squid’, in a kingdom he creates for his own where justice does not apply. Borrowed from the stylistic and compositional quality of medieval biblical manuscripts, Nam’s installations and paintings of the sea monster, all rooted in his childhood experiences, are rendered in bright colors to convey hope of saving himself in an absurd world. In her “Evenness” series, Park Kyungryul creates painting installations that incorporate daily objects as well as ceramics, sculptures and paintings. Devoid of any narrative, these pieces invite the audience to arrive at their own interpretation in which fragmented scenes are connected like an omnibus. Artist group RohwaJeong produces paintings that result from the dripping of paint from a complicated set of kinetic plywood installation hanging above, which they sprinkled paint on and let flow along each trajectory. The plane pedestal then integrates each trace into a spontaneous yet preconceivedsite-specific image. While each mobile hanging in the air acts as ametaphor for an individual, the pedestal represents the various social devices and interventions applied to one’s socialization.
Founded in Seoul, South Korea in 2012, Willing N Dealing is a non-profit art organization with the mission of initiating contemporary art productions and fostering cultural discourses and ideas. Inseon Kim, the Director, aims to establish an art space where artists can freely experiment with their interests without realistic pressure. The space is dedicated to present the recent development of established artists, support the programs of emerging artists and organize curated shows and market-driven programs. WD has also organized a micro art fair “Solo Show”, through the collaboration with other institutions, to cultivate collecting tastes among new collectors.
