Sunah Choi

Duration: October 9 – November 5, 2016

Opening: 5 pm, Saturday, October 8, 2016

Venue: 15 Jongno 22-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Korea

Opening hours: Monday to Saturday between 11 am and 5 pm. (Closed on Sundays and holidays, but visitors may view the artworks through the window of the Project 7 1/2 space.)

Projected by Sunyoung Oh, an independent curator, the project 7 1/2 has begun out of a fundamental question, “What is art?” and has sought how to sense art before it is verbalized: the distinction between art and non-art. 7 1/2, a series of projects for the last 3 years since 2014, becomes one story of the exploration process, not individual independent exhibitions or performances. When the project is completed, delicate, sensuous stories that emerged in the research process will be revealed as a result of the exploration.

The works proposed by all the participating artists in the project 7 1/2 were not fully unveiled until the installation and completion of the works since they had to be revived newly applying to the design, site, and theme of the project. Through the process, subtle senses have come, and they acted as a stimulus to every curator and participating artist’s interest.

The fifth of the project 7 1/2 in 2016 is the exhibition of Sunah Choi. It opens from October 8 through November 5. (Closed on Sundays and holidays/ From Monday to Saturday 11:00 AM – 5:00 PM) And this is the last exhibition of the project 7 1/2 in 2016.

The works of Sunah Choi in this exhibition are broken down into three parts, which include works on the postcards sent to Korea from Germany, photos based on the principle of Photogram, and murals.

First, living and working in Berlin, Germany, the artist Sunah Choi made 13 postcard-sized watercolor paintings and sent them to the address of Seoul where the project 7 1/2 is underway before she departed for Korea. Those paintings are color planes, comprised of specific combinations of colors. Each composite suggests its own abstract meaning. The color combination serves as a sort of code without any explanation. And the possible loss or damage during the mail delivery becomes an essential element for the final completion of this work.

Second, photography featuring the Cyanotype technique based on the Photogram principle, a technique to create shadow only by putting objects directly on the sensitive paper and exposing them to the light without using a camera. Throughout history, architects have created architectural drawings using photography, which became the origin of the term, blueprint. Rather than focusing on the properties of photography as an actual reappearance of reality, instead, Sunah Choi pursues the potential of this photography that appears peripheral. Since the work cannot be altered once exposed or have a negative film, only one original print possibly exists. Such limitations of technology define the nature of work as one-time and absolute. The technical constraint paradoxically prompted her to focus on the subject matter and the theme of the work of art that she desires to deal with. Through the negative space derived from ordinary things, she has invented a fresh abstract design and pattern, shaping advances in reinterpreting collected army camouflage patterns into a pioneering pattern after analyzing and emulating them again. The level of questioning continues throughout the process regarding a conception and abstraction, nature and the similar nature as its reemergence, emulation and camouflage, destruction and protection, and aesthetic demands and function. In parallel, the work highlights the matters of the microscopic and macroscopic world, angles and scales, and time and memory.

Third, the artist Sunah Choi works on the mural imbuing it with special significance as a specific site, with attention to the scale of the exhibition site and the originality of the structure. The exhibition site, a remodelled Korean traditional house, ‘Hanok’, distinguishes itself through its transformed and renovated uniqueness. Such components are metaphorically and circuitously permeated through Sunah Choi’s mural work. This confined and long-passage-like space about the size of one compartment of a train is realized in a fresh fashion through her mural work. This work gains importance as a directed space and a primary screen, not as a background for making the work installed in the white cube look better or a margin.

The artist Sunah Choi translates and construes a social, cultural, and historic issue or phenomenon into a unique visual language through a meticulous observation and approach. It is a synchronic and diachronic approach associated with relationships between an object and a phenomenon that matters to the artist in the observation process. She, for example, focuses on the meaning of interaction originating from relationships between space and scale, time and memory, and nature and technology. During the process of shaping the ideas or conceptions and bringing a tangible work of art, the artist pursues an inevitable encounter of form and content, actively allowing the effect of fortuitousness, and keeping herself open to the possibilities of various interpretations and the enjoyment of the work. The artist seeks a medium to ensure the organic relationship of the contents in each work. Her work, therefore, has involved various mediums such as sculpture, installation, photography, and performance.