KOREA with KOREA

OZANEAUX ArtSpace is pleased to host a unique exhibition produced by Korea Art Forum, titled KOREA with KOREA. You are cordially invited to the opening reception, Thursday, October 20, 2016 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.

KOREA with KOREA is a group exhibition exploring a new Korean identity that has the potential to eliminate escalating tensions due to the country’s division. This exhibition attempts to contribute to the advancement of contemporary art while, at the same time, global peace-building, as it brings together landscape art North Korea, South Korea, China and the US.

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Described for centuries as an arena of conflict and competition by most scholars of Korea, the physical land of the Korean peninsula seems to manifest a concrete instance of the abstract concept of contemporary art that advances by the logic of contradiction and competition. In addition, the country’s name, “Korea,” comes from the name of the dynasty Koryo, which literally means “high” (Ko) and “fine” (Ryo), implicitly conveying the core aesthetic values of the sublime and the beautiful. Inspired by these striking affinities of Korea to contemporary art, the exhibition questions external factors that impact the framework of contemporary art, a regime of the sublime and the beautiful that exists at the fulcrum of the precarious balance of power equation. The exhibition includes works of art that have rarely or never been seen in New York City and features the following artists:

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• From South Korea: Sungho Choi, Hongseon Jang, Tae Seok Ju, and Jayoung Yoon.

• From North Korea: Chang-ho Choi, Bong-Kwan Kang, Chol-ryong Kim, Hyun-il Kim, Sung-il Oh, Kwang Ri, Sun-myong Ri, and Young-chol Ri.

• From China: Yutian Qi, Xiao Wang, Gaozhong Wu, and Shen Yang.

• From the US: Joel Carreiro, Anton Ginzburg, Robert Morris, and Frank Webster.

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Each of these artists uniquely reinterprets the meaning of landscapes and landscape paintings, revealing the conditions – historical, cultural, and/or political – of the society in which they live and work. Each artist finds different problems within the context of a landscape and articulates these problems in the visual language of their individual voice. Although all of the artworks explore the same theme – the land – they are very different from one another. Placing them together enables viewers to begin to identify sources of tension and conflict within the international policies of the four states.