23.09.2005 to 20.11.2005

Four from Korea: KIM Changkyum, OH Inhwan, YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES, JUNG Yeondoo

The National Museums in Berlin (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) present four positions of contemporary Korean art that reflect the aspects of the rapid technological and cultural changes of the country. Topics like identity and communication, fiction and reality are at the center of the artworks.

The two artists of YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES (established in 1999) chooses the technologically advanced, immaterial medium Internet as the site of their work. The artists remain unidentified under their pseudonym, and also their "films" based on text and jazz music give hints of the anonymity resulting from mass communication with subversive accounts. While you can experience their artwork online at http://www.yhchang.com, YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES build an installation from one of their projects for this exhibition.

Like the two previous artists, OH Inhwan (born 1964) has also found international recognition. His floor installations are three-dimensional with incense sticks. He modifies the installation according to the specific exhibition requirements. They signify, like a passing topography, the names of gay bars and clubs of their surroundings. They have titles like "Where a Man Meets Man in …" and symbolize forms of - ephemeral, anonymous - meetings, while the work of art itself dissolves in scented smoke during the exhibition period.

The basis for the "Wonderland" photo series by JUNG Yeondoo (born 1969) were drawings of children who used to be JUNG's pupils. Starting from these testimonies of untamed children's imagination, he stages the depicted scenes anew in his photographs. He sought assistance with professional costume designers and stage designers. By translating children's imaginative worlds in an artistic reality, he questions the relationship of imagination and reality and at the same time - as a trained sculptor - transcends the genres.

The relationship of reality and fiction, visible and imaginative media are also at the center of KIM Changkyum's (born 1961) video installations. The artist draws from Korea's political history as well as from the cultural influence derived from the West. Make-believe worlds and social crises, remembrance and presence, the individual with its cultural identity in an era of globalization are the focus of KIM Changkyum's elegiac and cautious films.

The exhibition is organized by the National Museums in Berlin in cooperation with the Korea Foundation and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Republic of Korea. An exhibition catalogue (German/Engl.) will be available.