The exhibition will identify three distinct groups within Minjung’s oeuvre: light flooded-mountain landscapes that shimmer through their diaphanous layers of sumi ink-painted and carefully charred paper; works with structures that adhere to the principle of order and disorder to create a myriad of individual constellations; and what Ammann characterizes as “the dance of the dervishes”, landscapes in which calm and tranquility are transposed into unrest by the dance of the brush in blue or red — a mark borne by the artist’s mood and honed by years of calligraphic training. Constancy and animism are opposite yet complimentary tensions in Minjung’s art, visualizing, as Ammann explains, “the past made present”. Whilst their subject matter is returned to again and again, her landscapes are each shaped by the emotionality of the artistic action and thus different in every work, describing the Eastern understanding of the world as not merely a collection of physical objects but as an infinite universe of processes. Energy is channeled through the extreme control of the artist’s brush, her pyrotechnic treatment of rice paper, her vivid use of colours and the animistic folds that writhe into three-dimensional islands, rosettes and constellations. Time – so evidently painstakingly expended in the making of these works – is a constant presence; a ritualistic embodiment in material as palpable as the depths these paper works attest.
A catalogue with an original text by Jean-Christophe Ammann will accompany the exhibition.
Opening Brunch: 10am - 12pm, Wednesday 6 May, Thursday 7 May, Friday 8 May rsvp: venice@luxembourgdayan.com
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MINJUNG KIM
Minjung Kim was born in Gwangju in the Republic of Korea in 1962. She studied Oriental calligraphy and painting allowing her to understand the fundamental precepts of the Asiatic speculative tradition. In 1985, she took her masters degree at Hong Ik University in Seoul prior to moving to Italy, where she studied at the Brera Academy in Milan. She has shown with Luxembourg & Dayan at Oko in New York and in a solo presentation at the 2014 Artgéneve. She has exhibited in a number of museums including Fondazione Palazzo Bricherasio, Torino; Museo Comunale, Ascona; Museum Sbygningen, Copenhagen, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds; Guanshan Yue Art Museum, Shenzhen; Macro - Museo Arte Contemporanea Rome; and her works can be found in several public and private collections. She lives and works in the south of France and the United States.
J-C. AMMANN
Swiss art-historian and curator Jean-Christophe Ammann grew up in the German-speaking part of Fribourg, Switzerland, where he studied art history, Christian archeology and German litera- ture. At 29, the young art historian was appointed a director of the Kunstmuseum Luzern. His exhibition program drew an im- mediate attention, particularly the groundbreaking show Trans- former: Aspects of Travesty. During his directorship, he focused on the new generation of artists such as Joseph Beuys and Gerhard Richter, who he continued to promote. During the 1970s, he was a Swiss representative for the Paris Biennale and also worked on the concept of documenta 5, arguably one of the most interesting and influential exhibitions. He served at the Venice Biennale in 1978, co-organizing Arte Natura at the international pavilion. In 1995, Ammann was selected as a curator of the German pavilion and showed selected works by Katharina Fritsch, Martin Honert and Thomas Ruff.