■ Suki Seokyeong Kang
(b. 1977, Seoul)
Suki Seokyeong Kang, Grandmother Tower #1, 2011-2015, Winding thread on the found & reproduced industrial dish carrier, Dimensions variable, Courtesy: ARARIO Collection, Studio Suki Seokyeong Kang.
Suki Seokyeong Kang reinterprets various traditional concepts and methodologies in Korea as well as narrative elements extracted from her own body and personal history. She weaves it with her own formative language in various media, including painting, installation, and video. Grandmother Tower #1, one of her long series, is an abstract portrait of her grandmother. The work contains the respect for the strength and nobility of a woman, who is also the embodiment of the turbulent modern history of Korea and the woman’s struggles for her value in the society. At the same time, it functions as a prototype of the artist’s visual language for space and time. Circled Stair is reminiscent of a device that assists a grandmother who has difficulty stepping even a single stair. It contains concerns about the structure and form that a body with limitations can rely on and respect for the fragile strength that can withstand heavy weight. Narrow Meadow #19-08, completed by stacking round objects, has several wheels running in various directions at the bottom, making it impossible to move around. The combination of these three works is reminiscent of the coexistence of the elder and the present generation.
Suki Seokyeong Kang graduated with DFA, BFA and MFA in Korean painting at Ewha Womans University and an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art, London. Kang is currently a professor of Korean painting at Ewha Womans University. She recently held solo exhibitions at Buk-Seoul Museum of Art, Mudam Luxembourg, and the ICA Philadelphia. Her works have been featured in the Venice Biennale, the Shanghai Biennale, and the Gwangju Biennale. Kang was awarded the Baloise Art Prize at 2018 Art Basel.
■ Mostafa Saifi Rahmouni
(b. 1991, Rabat)
Mostafa Saifi Rahmouni, Fusion (Detail of the work), 2015, Digital print on paper & Mounted on Metal, 70×220×10cm.
Working primarily in sculpture and photography, Mostafa Saifi Rahmouni considers the physical and psychological landscape. With distinct poetics, he creates concise forms that reflect on experiences both personal and societal. Referring to scenes of fatality – burial sites, illicit actions, and ritual slaughter – that exist too often in the everyday, he describes a reality of mortality and sacrifice. Simple yet pensive, his forms are in a state of flux – ready-made sculptures look hand-crafted, and vice versa. His images fl oat between mournfulness and optimism. In 2015, he recorded his grandmother’s coughing in sound. He recalls that he had grown up with his grandmother's coughing, so the sound itself was more of grandmother's existence rather than sad or distressing. In this work, he invites the audience to experience the weight of their grandmother's life and to resonate with their own grandmother’s existence.
Mostafa Saifi Rahmouni attended the Institut National des Beauxarts de Tétouan and the ENSAV-La Cambre in Brussels. He was selected as a candidate laureate of the HISK post-graduate residency, Ghent. He exhibited internationally and his most recent solo show includes The Front Line at the M HKA Museum, Antwerp (2022). He presented outdoor work The Visible Part at the Middelheim Museum, Antwerp (2021) and installation in the Sharjah Biennial (2017). He has participated in residency programs at Wiels, Brussels (2020) and Hangar, Barcelona (2018).
■ Oh Suk Kuhn
(b. 1979, Incheon)
Portrait of Choi Geumrye (Oh Suk Kuhn, face to face, 2022.08.30) Photo: Sun A Moon Portrait of Sun A Moon (Oh Suk Kuhn, face to face, 2022.08.30) Photo: Choi Geumrye
Oh Suk Kuhn has been recording and reproducing personal memories intertwined with the modern and contemporary history of Korea with a focus on Incheon, where he was born and raised. He explores the layers of time and memory created by colonization, modernization, industrialization, and the Korean War with a lens and weaves them together to counteract linear narratives. In this exhibition, he conducts a workshop face to face with grandmothers and grandchildren. They visit the exhibition together and take photographs with each other. During the workshop, participants reduce the awkwardness of “looking at others” through the camera allowing them to look at the face and expression more delicately. In this workshop, the artist’s role is limited to the mediator who provides photography skills and environment. When there are no workshops during the exhibition period, visitors are welcomed to use the workshop space to write postcards to their grandmothers and experience another “face to face” in a different form appropriating the former history of the Post Territory Ujeongguk.
Workshops: 2022.9.11 (SUN) 14:00, 15:30, 2022.9.18 (SUN) 14:00, 15:30 RSVP: spaceafroasia@gmail.com, +82 (0)70-8028-4267
Oh Suk Kuhn studied photography at Nottingham Trent University. His major solo exhibitions were held in Incheon Urban History Museum & Incheon Culture Brewery (2019), Seohakdong Photo Gallery (2016), Incheon Art Platform (2011). He participated in group shows in various venues including the Busan Biennale (2022), ARKO Arts Theater (2021), National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Gwacheon (2017), Buk-Seoul Museum of Art (2017), the Daegu Photography Biennial (2016), Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (2016), the Liverpool Biennial (2012), Fotofest Biennial, Texas (2008).