D AiR

Hyungkoo Lee, Suejin Chung, Uram Choe

July 9 – August 8, 2009

Our first exhibition opens with a reception and ribbon-cutting ceremony on
July 9, beginning at 6pm.

A selection of new works by our first artists in residence.

The Doosan Gallery and Artist Residency Program in New York is dedicated to the discovery and support of young artists from Korea. Managed by the Doosan Yonkang Foundation of South Korea, this is the first non-profit organizationfrom the country to be recognized by the state of New York, as well as New York City’s education department. The organization provides living quarters, working studios and exhibition space in the capital of contemporary art, with the goal to give artists an opportunity to share their work with a broader audience. The gallery and residency programs launched in June 2009.

The gallery program is an off shot of the Artists Incubating course at the Doosan Art Center in Seoul, which promotes exchange between artists and art professionals of the non- and for-profit sectors. Exhibitions are organized by curators who are selected by invitation only. The gallery is located in the heart of the Chelsea art district at 531 West 25 Street, and measures nearly 2,000 square feet.

The residency program strives to discover young talented artists and provide them with mid to long term residency in New York City to further develop their talents and be exposed to the multitudes of other gifted artists in this city. The studios are located next door to the gallery, and measure approximately 900 square feet each.

Hyungkoo Lee (b. 1969)
Hyungkoo Lee majored in sculpture at Hongik University as an undergraduate, and obtained hismaster’s degree in sculpture from Yale University. He was the first artist to be granted a solo exhibition in the Korean Pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale. His work was recently the subject of another major solo show at the Natural History Museum in Basel (2008).

Hyungkoo Lee came onto the scene with his Objectuals Series in the early part of this century. In 2006, he released the skeletal and highly acclaimed Animatus series. Approaching his work from a scientific standpoint, Hyungkoo Lee creates remarkably realistic reconstructions of skeletons resembling familiar cartoon characters like Donald Duck or Tom and Jerry. The works begin as meticulously rendered drawings that are reminiscent of classical naturalist studies. They are then constructed as sculptures in his laboratory-like studio from resin casts and metal beams before being arranged in dramatically lit encounters throughout the gallery space. For the Doosan exhibition, Lee will show a new series of drawings.

Lee is in residence with Doosan New York through November 30, 2009.

Suejin Chung (b. 1969)
Suejin Chungreceived her BFA in Western Fine Art from the Hongik University in Korea, and earned her master’s degree from The School of Art Institute ofChicago. She had her solo exhibition at Arario Gallery New York in 2009.

Suejin Chunginsists that there are absolute rules by which to analyze formal art practices, such as painting. Chung takes an analytical approach to painting that has been summarized as “a visual language that exists in a completely different dimension than that of letters or words.” In multi-layered and color saturated canvases she depicts strange environments filled with people, individual body parts, shapes, symbols, and foodstuffs. Though her paintings appear to result from free association, they are mathematically and theoretically complex compositions of both the figurative and abstract, interior and exterior spaces. Chung suggests that to understand painting is to understand the multi-dimensionality of human consciousness. “Therefore,” she writes, “you do not need to ask what [a] painting means anymore.”

Suejin Chung is in residence with Doosan New York through November 30, 2009.

Uram Choe (b. 1970)
The visual language of U-Ram Choe describes natural biomorphic form that is marked by a seemingly organic incorporation of etched stainless steel, robotics and acrylic. Exploring the boundaries of archeological discovery and developmental morphology, Choe’s explanations and Latin titles for these creations follow the linguistic traditions of scientific nomenclature. Telling stories using gestural transformation and the tracing of imagined evolutionary stages, these pieces take on the silhouette of actual life forms, as intricate automata express a refined delicacy and weightlessness. Unexpected and fantastical, Choe’s kinetic simulations cyclically breathe with movement that recalls aquatic propulsion, flight and ritualistic courtship displays.

Upcoming exhibits in the United States include the First Center of Visual Center in Nashville and the Asia Society in 2010. Featured in the 2008 Liverpool Biennale at FACT, Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, Liverpool, Choe has also exhibited at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Shanghai Biennial; Leeum Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul; NTT Intercommunication Center (ICC), Tokyo; Art Basel; Seoul Museum of Art; Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art, Dallas; Asian Art Triennial, Manchester Art Gallery; Sungkok Art Museum, Seoul; Metropolitan Art Museum, Busan; Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna; SCAI The Bathhouse, Tokyo; Beijing Expocenter; and Olympic Art Museum, Seoul. U-Ram Choe is represented by bitforms gallery NYC.

Uram Choe is in residence with Doosan New York through May 30, 2010.