Giudecca 795

Minjung Kim on exhibit at Giudecca 795

Giudecca795 is proud to present Minjung Kim on exhibit for the first time in Venice, from August 25 to September 13, 2007. Opening hours: 11am-11pm. (Opening 25 August: midday-midnight). Free adm. Actv (public transport) boat lines number 41, 42, 82 to Palanca.

Born in South Korea, when she was very young she began the study of painting with the greatest masters of calligraphy. At 29 she moved to Italy and continued her studies at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, where a knowledge of Western art fostered her artistic consciousness. Her works bear a distinctively Oriental stamp. At times they are painted on white rice paper in black ink, presenting the fluidity of motion. At other times, however, the fine surface of the paper is colored and signed with a flame, producing circular forms of varying sizes. These multicolored circles are then glued to each other in concentric sequences, from smallest to largest, forming wholes that look like delicate flowers. Arranged one beside the other, their polychrome corollas form an abstract texture, suggesting a sort of psychedelic vision with hypnotic effect - as Guido Curto suggests in the catalogue "Vuoto nel Pieno" by Electa.

But.. are they really "flowers"?

"My work has always been a visualization of Zen and Tao" -- the artist says -- In these great philosophies there is the idea of the two opposed principles of void and solid, between which there exists a continuous tension that causes reality to exist. It's a deeply philosophical vision. The two opposed principles change continuously, and this constitutes the essence, the driving force that moves the world. As a painter i have very limited materials, a sheet of paper on which to express this incessant change. What I wanted to achieve is the representation of the essence of chaos, the continuous alternation of the two opposed forces. I burnt part of the sheet, the solid, and so obtained an image that united both the solid and the void. I added another sheet of paper with a hole burnt in the middle and went on like that, superimposing voids and solids. You have to remember that fire is one of the ways of cinrcumventing time. It would take several millennia for the paper to disintegrate: I accelerate this log-term mutation. I call this superimposition of burnt sheets "Void in Fullness". Flowers have nothing to do with it, but if you call them flowers or anything else it doesn't trouble me, because the visible world is made up of the truth of all things... I let people say what they like, because in the end it all comes down to the same thing"

The Artist

Born in 1962, from the age of six she studied painting under various teachers, including the famous watercolourist Yeon gyun Kang, and then Oriental calligraphy, so that she could understand the fundamental precepts of Asiatic speculative tradition.

This is what we could describe as the oriental "action painting". The study of calligraphy did not just endow Minjung Kim with this vision of the world but also taught her to communicate by means of the extremely controlled use of the brush, which "channels" the energy and directs it onto the paper.

When in 1980 she enrolled in the Hong Ik university in Seoul, Minjung had already received a very thorough artistic education which was completed through the detailed study of Oriental painting under Taejun Ha, Sunam Song and Sukhchang Hong. Once her university course had been completed in 1985, she took a Master's degree at the same university with a thesis on the four basic material in ink painting (rice paper, brush, ink pigment and the pigment grinding stone).

In 1991 she enrolled at the Brera Academy in Milan. The works of Paul Klee and Franz Kline prompted her to approach a new aesthetic direction that look her progressively away from the figurative tradition towards an investigation of the expressive value of marks and maculas, two stylistic elements that combine perfectly with the 'process-based view of the world' and the ability to 'channel the energy', both o which she learned in her study of calligraphy. During her academic studies, she learned the basics of avant-garde concepts and the expressive freedom that typifies the more recent artistic trends.

Her exploration of the interrelationship between Oriental and Western techniques and conceptions continues outside the Academy. In her pictorial work - which she always executes on the floor in keeping with Oriental tradition, because both literally and metaphorically the floor is the basic support for all painting - Minjung tends to use increasingly concentrated watercolours in order to express effectively the intensity the colours contain.

In her works made during 1998 on overlaid layers of paper, she burned sections of them to generate an effect of three-dimensionality, to provide the viewer with a chronological dimension, and to indicate layers of time symbolised by the layers of paper.

Personal exhibits
2007 Giudecca 795 Venezia (Italy)
2007 Leslie Sacks Fine Art, Los Angeles (USA)
2007 Guanshanyue Art Museum, Shenzhen (China)
2006 Palazzo Bricherasio, Torino (Italy), Fondazione Palazzo Bricherasio, catalogue published by Electa
2006 Monte Carlo Art Gallery, Milano (Italy)
2006 Leslie Sacks Fine Art, Los Angeles (USA)
2006 Galleria Valeria Bella, Milano (Italy)
2004 Museumsbygningen, Copenhagen (Denmark)
2004 Biennale di Gwangju, Gwangju (Rep. of Korea)
2004 Arte 92, Milano (Italy)
2003 IKOS, Modena (Italy)
2003 Museo Comunale d'Arte Moderna, Ascona (Italy)
2003 L.A. International Biennal Art Invitational, Los Angeles (USA)
2003 Leslie Sacks Fine Art, Los Angeles (USA)
2003 Galerie Patrick Cramer, Genève (Switzerland)
2002 Copenhagen Gallery, Copenhagen (Denmark)
2002 Galleria Recalcati, Torino (Italy)
1999 Galerie Patrick Cramer, Genève (Svizzera), catalogue by Roberto Borghi
1999 Wickeiser Gallery, New York (USA)
1998 Galleria Cafiso, Milano (Italy), catalogue by Luciano Caramel, Roberto Borghi
1997 Cappella di Villa Ruffolo, Ravello, Napoli (Italy)
1996 Galleria Kontraste, Forte dei Marmi (Italy)
1996 Galleria Arte Bologna, Milano (Italy), catalogue by Cristina Cano, Jacqueline Ceresoli, Gianni Schuber
1991 Injae Art Museum, Gwangju (Rep. of Korea)
1991 Baik Song Gallery, Seoul (Rep. of Korea), catalogue by Suth Seong Rock

Thanks
We wish to thank for cooperation to "Vuoto nel Pieno - Minjung Kim in Venice" (Giudecca 795):

Ohmegatre snc impianti elettrici
GM Illuminazione
Rinaldin srl
Glenda Cartini
Andrea Lugli
Santo Miglioranza falegnameria
Nuova CRS Stampe digitali

Special thanks:

Carlo, Sebastiano, Emanuele (Ohmegatre snc); Alessandro (Materialmente); Edoardo and Serena (Rinaldin srl); Massimiliano Bandera studio architettura; Nicolò (Nuova CRS).

We also thank Guido Curto, Gian Alberto Farinella, Antonella Commellato, (Minjung Kim's catalogue "Vuoto nel Pieno" published by ELECTA)