ㅇExhibition: 2023 Daegu ForumⅡ《Water Fire Body》
ㅇTime: January 31, 2023 - May 14, 2023
ㅇVenue: Gallery 2, 3 & Sunken Garden, Daegu Art Museum
ㅇArtists: KIM Taek-Sang(b.1958), YOON-HEE(b.1950), Hwang HoSup(b.1955) (3 in total)
ㅇMedium and number of works: About 60 works of painting, installation and sculpture 


Through Daegu Forum, Daegu Art Museum has been presenting exhibitions that focus on major currents and issues in contemporary art. Opening its second edition of 2023 with 《Water Fire Body》, Daegu Forum offers an experience and reflection on the fundamental value and spirit of beauty residing in Korean art. The world we live in changes every moment yet its essence remains unchanged. The exhibition aims to cultivate a contemporary art in which water, fire and human body, among other elemental sources of all things, are in relation to one another. 《Water Fire Body》 presents works by KIM Taek-Sang(1958~), who uses water to portray the true brilliance of Korean monochrome painting dansaekhwa; YOON-HEE(1950~), who investigates the materiality of sculpture by using fire to melt mineral chunks for her work; and Hwang HoSup(1955~), who conveys the life force of nature and primitive power of universe through bodily movements. 

In the Eastern idea of Yin, Yang and Five Elements, it is understood that the energies of wood(木), fire(火), earth(土), metal(金) and water(水) move and activate all things in the world. Fire erupts forcefully in all directions above the ground, while water embraces change with flexibility like a river flowing under the earth. Also, it is the energy of five elements that constitutes our body. 《Water Fire Body》 is completed by the encounter of three artists with distinct qualities of water, fire and body, suggesting that the universe is an interconnected entity and we ourselves are the universe. Three artists, all of them being well over 40 years into their career, have created works that evoke the ways of truth-seeking ascetics. Perhaps that is why we, standing in front of their works, come to contemplate on the value and spirit of pure beauty in Korean art and acquire a meditative experience by watching in stillness. Through various mediums such as painting, installation and sculpture, 《Water Fire Body》 introduces the difference, similarity and interconnection of water, fire and body. 


KIM Taek-Sang
Growing up in Wonju, Gangwon Province, KIM Taek-Sang has been strongly influenced by the senses and emotions of color in nature. He observed the beauty hidden in nature's colors and persistently examined the essence of water to express its resplendence, which led to his current body of work. In order to express the color of light, the artist pours diluted acryl into a frame and lets the canvas settle in the liquid. Then, the surface area soaked in the liquid and settling time are adjusted before it is dried and the work is completed. In this creative process, light, wind, time and season in the studio are controlled. Kim is considered a leading artist in the new generation that is continuing the tradition of Korean dansaekhwa. In this exhibition, the effect of subtle spread and overlap of colors by using water in his work will show the new current in post dansaekhwa.  

YOON-HEE
YOON-HEE is a sculptor who is working in Korea and France, having lived in France for more than 40 years. In this exhibition, she shows expressive sculptures with her distinctive rough texture. In the early 80s, she began to collect metal materials and investigate a wide range of materiality. In 1999, she covered the entire floor of a building in Bretagne using lead, which can be melted with a welding machine at a relatively low temperature, and since the 2000s, she has created more diverse castings using one mold. The mold usually weighs 150-300kg, in shapes of cone, cylinder and sphere. Then, boiling molten iron is thrown into the mold while the mold gets rolled. Rolled and thrown in a state of liquid with slightly changing force, direction, speed and quantity, without intentionality, the material is transformed into a new sculpture. 

Hwang HoSup
Through his encounter with Jean Fournier(1922~2006), Europe’s most prestigious gallerist who visited the graduation exhibition of the Ecole nationale superieure des Arts Decoratifs, Hwang HoSup has worked based in Europe and the US. He persistently repeats the process of applying paint meticulously before peeling it off and adding another layer, through which golden or silvery mineral-like paint mingles with acrylic paint to create an infinite depth of night. Untitled, his series of works presented in this exhibition, used the dripping technique without brushstrokes on canvas. Drips of acrylic paint scattered on the surface begin to dry and coagulate, but soon the center is washed away by the water sprayed by the artist, turning into numerous color particles that form a thin ring. The mysterious light effect created by pigments with minerals like copper, alluvial gold, manganese and mica is similar to the infinite outer space filled with uncountable stars and an aurora of the North Pole with swirling energy. Through a series of repetitive actions of paint spontaneously spreading, flowing and washed on canvas, Hwang aims to evoke the life force of nature and primal power of universe.