The Interspaces Gendarmenmarkt in Galerie Son 2011
Junggeun OH - Die Zwischenräume Gendarmenmarkt - The Interspaces Gendarmenmarkt 4 November – 28 January 2011
Junggeun OH
Die Zwischenräume Gendarmenmarkt - The Interspaces Gendarmenmarkt
Venue: Galerie Son
Date: 4 November – 28 Januar 2011
In the forthcoming exhibition at galerie son, the Korean painter Junggeun OH continues to show his own very personal cartography of a metropolis. This fourth instalment of his series Interspaces picks Berlin’s Gendarmenmarkt as a starting point. The artist shows “spaces between”, apparently meaning the sky or shadows of urban architecture which, seen from often unusual perspectives, are the starting point of his paintings. On the canvas they become unusually flat and change into zestful abstract forms. Three-dimensionality is ousted by the technique of Junggeun Oh: numerous very smooth layers of painting, both shiny and matt, interspersed on some areas by countless little horizontal or vertical brushstrokes in oil or by cardboard collage, create a very sensuous quality of the surface. The paintings are mostly twocolored and limit themselves to the use of different Asian lacquer ware-like hues of red and black. Through his oscillation between reality and abstraction, solid and light, objects and their place in space, Junggeun Oh creates very meditative and concentrated works that convey an ideal, metaphysical and abstract notion of beauty. Insofar the “interspaces” are to be seen philosophically as well.
Verena ALVES-RICHTER
History of Galerie Son
Galerie son was founded in August 2005 in the Linienstraße in Berlin-Mitte by the art historian and publisher Mihyun SON.
Galerie son considers itself a new impulse in the culture of galleries and makes a contribution to the international dialogue of art - especially between Europe and Asia. We represent international artists from Korea, Germany, Italy, Japan, France and the USA.
Beside exhibitions in our gallery space, we develop our artists and work intensively for projects at special places and special events, such as the exhibition "Light" at the New Kranzler Eck 2006, the event "schlitzaugen / slit-eyes" as part of the Asia Pacific Weeks Berlin 2007, the "Dialogue between Gerhard Richter and Junggeun Oh" in 2007 and the "Dialogue between Antony Gormley and Björn Borgmann" in 2009 in the rooms of the Sammlung Hoffmann Berlin, the exhibition "Art from Korea and Germany" in 2007, 2008 and 2009 and an International Art Project 2007-2009 in cooperation with the Berlin Wall Memorial, where artists from China, Russia, Germany and Korea created large artworks in the former death strip between East and West Berlin at the Bernauer Straße.
In 2008 galerie son went to the Wallstraße - the origin and birthplace of the City of Berlin. In that year the galerie son and Königliche Porzellan Manufaktur (KPM) started a project together where artists chosen by the gallery created artworks made of KPM porcelain. These days we are planning international exhibitions for the presentation of the KPM artworks. In August 2008 we organized the exhibition "once upon a time" by Johannes HEISIG as a cooperation with the Berlin Wall Memorial and the Berlin Press Conference in the Berlin House of Representatives. The public reactions were huge. The Cultural Ministry of Buenos Aires intends to present the exhibition in Argentina. After this we showed ELSNER's "self injuries" and "border injuries" - historically important works that had not been seen for 20 years and that also were exhibited in the Museum of the City of Berlin in 2009.
On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall ELSNER's artworks were seen together with the works of Johannes HEISIG and Junggeun OH in the exhibition "3 berliner" in the German Embassy in London as part of the VIP program of the FRIEZE ART FAIR 2009.
Eduard Habicher and his 'red thread at the harbour' (Der Rote Faden am Hafen) installation road with red sculptures made of steel can still be visited on Berlin's Fischerinsel along the canal of the spree and in Wallhoefe.
In spring 2011 galerie son moved to Mauerstraße, right around the corner from Checkpoint Charlie, and started a thorough cooperation with THE PAGE GALLERY in Seoul for their solo exhibition of the American expressionist painter Sam FRANCIS.
After the solo exhibition of one of Korea's most reputed contemporary artists - SUH Yongsun - in its own space galerie son took part at Berlin's MUSEUM LONG NIGHT (about 30.000 visitors) on August 27th with the Johannes HEISIG project 'crossings' that is shown at three places in the city simultaneously: galerie son, SEZ and Willy-Brandt-Haus.
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