STORYTELLERS

The Gwangju Pavilion announces the final exhibition of 2011 artists in residence Jaebum Kim and Yeon Sook Lee. Concluding their three-month stay STORYTELLERS presents a collaborative approach towards the exhibition space opening interconnections between universal phenomena of contemporary culture and the specific visual languages and conceptual grounds of the two artists.

이연숙_Everyday landscapes were 5 steps distances site-specific window installation(plastic bag, lamp)_450×1000cm_2011

STORYTELLERS refers to a common artistic practice which includes narratives as options for interweaving disparate, often times overlooked aspects of our present with imaginary and hypothetical propositions. The real and the fictional alongside the concepts of similarity and difference are equally constitutional for every kind of story, be it historical, religious, social or poetic. Even if 'true' or 'fake' are hardly applicable categories when every 'reading' is condensing individual experience, every story contains truth about general aspects of human behaviour.

김재범_Die Zeit in spinneri_mixed media_가변크기_2011

김재범_Let`s wait and see #2_ID pictures_300×200cm_2011

Within their works Jaebum Kim and Yeon Sook Lee allow and foster areas of ambiguity and thus create new narratives of contemporary society. Questioning the authority of media representationJaebum Kim explores and reinterprets drastic events of our collective memory. In his work he builds up and displays media archives around a certain incident and combines them with fictional, but high-gloss magazine like photographs of the moment right before the crime, catastrophe or incident. The silhouette of an airplane on a Skyscraper in New York City or the shadow of a man carrying a ladder on the monumental South Gate of Seoul, set on fire in 2008, are images that seem uncannily familiar. As the sum of media reports and pictures around those events built up a common visual vocabulary, we believe to recognize them in Kim's photos. But these images show situations that have not been documented; they have not been taken in the moment they are describing. Hence their meaning is cannot be fixed by our mediatised narrative of younger history. ● Not being much concerned about probability but about the strength of omen, Kim's works reflect mythology as contemporary practice. Critically and inventively he uses the documentary and fictional qualities of photography to juxtapose ethical ambiguities, systemic shortcomings, media realities, data and individual experience.

이연숙_I`m A Citi Girl – A Dreaming Boat_usedtravel cosmetic packages, coca cola bottle, plaster_site-specific installation_2011

Extending stories into spatial dimensions, Yeon Sook Lee approaches narratives from a sculptural perspective. Lee's installations and sculptures shine in the light of our throw-away-culture while materializing textures of complex interrelations between individual forms of memory and subordinate codes of capitalism. In her recent works plastic bags are both object of research and source material. Cutting, crocheting, knitting and reassembling these quotidian objects into improbable physical metaphors, the artist reaches the viewer's immediate response. The combination of poor materials and a highly elaborate practice creates fruitful paradoxes between the realms of the private and the public. In her new photographic series Yours Lee explores the plastic bag as consumerist fetish and rubbish in the same time. Following the trace of carried, abandoned or rededicated bags through urban surroundings, she portrays a city in its social complexity. ● With the attitude of pure wonder Lee's work gives a visual reading on how modern individuals unwittingly project their emotions, personal experience and memory on subordinate codes of capitalist society. And on the reverse consumerism reveals as a screen upon which values, social behaviour and affiliation emerge. ● The Gwangju Pavilion is a residency and exhibition space for South Korean and Asian contemporary Art in Leipzig. It is run by the Kunsthalle Gwangju as one of the showcases for the Asian Culture Complex (South Korea). ■ Susanne Husse

Vol.20111203j | STORYTELLERS-김재범_이연숙 2인展