Eyes of a Curator, Tips for Viewing the VR Exhibition (9) Curator Sun Mi Shin from the Shin Museum of Art
2016-09-26 l Hit 3261
Eyes of a Curator, Tips for Viewing the VR Exhibition
(9) Curator Sun Mi Shin from the Shin Museum of Art
Kwang Ho CHEONG's Private Exhibition,《Margin, Empty Out》
 Captured image of VR exhibition by artist Kwang Ho CHEONG |
People think of traditional sculptures as heavy three-dimensional forms, but artist Kwang Ho CHEONG’s sculptures seem so light that they look like they could be blown away by a light breeze. A few of the characteristics of the artist’s work are: it is three-dimensional, it sometimes appears flat, and you can see through the work. Therefore, his work is called ‘non-sculptural sculpture’, which means his work is categorized as sculpture, but it does not share some sculptural elements.
This exhibition is organized in order to show his oeuvre though his major work. Artist Kwang Ho CHEONG’s solo VR exhibition was managed by Sun Mi Shin, a curator from the Shin Museum of Art. Here, curator Sun Mi Shin reveals the intention behind the exhibition. “Artist Kwang Ho CHEONG is from Chungcheong-do, a region where the Shin Museum of Art is located, and he and the museum have been collaborating since before the VR exhibition in the following ways: the exhibition《Beyond Lines and Colors》in 2001 and the exhibition《Harmony Between Naturalism and Mysticism》in 2009. I wanted to introduce an artist of talent in the local community through the Korean Artist Project.”
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The curator added, “There are various pieces in the exhibition, from his early to his recent work. Through his major work, I hope we can have the chance to observe traces of his concerns, revealed not only in the artist’s unique light sculptures, but also from its characteristic surfaces expressed in pictorial ways.”
All of the artist’s work has different shapes; leaf forms made by tracing their veins, pot shapes created by following the cracks of pots, fish shapes formed by connecting their scales. Each work has different shapes, but they have something in common; all the work is made up of interconnected copper wires.
 Some of artist Kwang Ho CHEONG’s intentionally rolled-up work was exhibited to show the characteristics of his work. |
Curator Sun Mi Shin further explained it in this way, “People often identify the artist’s work as non-sculptural sculpture, since he creates work that is both three-dimensional and a flat painting at the same time, crossing the border between sculpture and painting. I decided on the title of this exhibition,《MARGIN, Empty Out》, since ‘margin’ means ‘blank space’, which best exemplifies the traditional Asian aesthetic of filling up by empting out, as well as the artist’s oeuvre.”
However, it was not easy to express the physical characteristics of the artist’s work online. The biggest challenge in organizing the exhibition was conveying the sense of space. I placed folded pots and other rolled-up work in the side of the exhibition hall to achieve the sense of space, based on the idea that the artist stores his work by rolling or folding it. Also, some of the work was displayed to achieve an overlapped look in order to show viewers that the work is empty.
 Some of the work was intentionally displayed to achieve an overlapped look to show viewers that the work is empty. |
The curator evaluated herself and commented that she felt sorry that the work’s unique surface, created by connecting cooper wires, and the depth of the work were not properly realized in the VR exhibition. She explained that she would like to record and show the process of unfolding the crumpled work to the viewers, if she has another chance to organize this VR exhibition.
Meanwhile, the artist is participating in the exhibition, 《Born in Flames: Korean Ceramics from the National Museum of Korea in Seoul》, that is being held at the Hermitage Museum in Russia until this coming November 6th. This exhibition was shown previously at the Grand-Palais in Paris, France, from last April to last June as a special exhibition organized by the National Museum of Korea.
2016. 9. 30 ⓒKorean Artist Project
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