(Im)Possible Landscape
November 8, 2012–February 3, 2013
PLATEAU, Samsung Museum of Art
Samsung Life Insurance Building
Taepyeongno2-Ga, Jung-Gu,
Seoul, Korea 100-716
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 10–6pm
T +82 2 2259 7726
PLATEAU, Samsung Museum of Art presents the group exhibition (Im)Possible Landscape from 8 November 2012 to 3 February 2013. (Im)Possible Landscape explores the diverse developments in contemporary art through the familiar theme of landscape, and furthermore hopes to examine the various experiences of understanding our world through its metaphor. While landscape is often perceived as a traditional genre, this exhibition proposes its new possibilities as a way for contemporary art to reconnect with reality.
Landscape is not simply a ‘scene of land’ but constructs the very backdrop of our lives which artists capture, edit and recreate according to their will. While the past believed that one may visually grasp the world through representation, the fiction of human knowledge ultimately overlooked the invisible uncertainties of life. In contemporary art, the realm of landscape has become much more broad and fluid by shifting the viewpoint to the hidden spaces of everyday life, reassembling the fragments of experience and information, as well as extending its scope beyond representation of visible reality. Contemporary art reminds us that our eyes and consciousness cannot possibly fathom landscape in its entirety, and the only way to vividly contact and experience life is to see its fragments through the voids and crevices in the back alleys of cognition. Landscape ceases to be the object of representation but now functions as a metaphor which reveals ‘the concealed dimension that exists inside but cannot be empirically perceived or captured,’ signified by the ‘outside’ of the subject.
The 14 participating artists in the exhibition, Kang Hong-Goo, Kong Sung-Hun, Nayoungim & Gregory Maass, Dong-Yeon Kim, Kim Beom, Sora Kim, Kim Hong Joo, Moon Beom, Yongseok Oh, Kibong Rhee, Lee Bul, Lee Seahyun and Chung Seoyoung, represent different generations and artistic styles, and their works also demonstrate the multiple directions in contemporary art branching from the common interest in the ‘contemplation of landscape.’ The infinite possibilities of the theme proposed by the artists in this exhibition will not only provide a more approachable understanding of contemporary art but reinterpretation of the traditional genre will also provide a meaningful opportunity for broadening its horizon.
Curated bySoyeon Ahn, Chief Curator, PLATEAU, Samsung Museum of Art, Korea.
PLATEAU, Samsung Museum of Art was first inaugurated in 1999 as Rodin Gallery, presenting its permanent installation of Auguste Rodin’s monumental masterpieces The Gates of Hell and The Burghers of Calais, and has established itself as one of the central institutions in the Korean contemporary art scene.
In May 2011, Rodin Gallery reopened its doors under the new name, PLATEAU, aspiring a broader scope of program, as well as higher artistic grounds for artists and patrons alike. With the new name, PLATEAU expresses our renewed commitment to embracing the dynamic developments in Korean and international contemporary art, in continuation with our permanent display of the Rodin masterpieces.
Press contact:
Lee Kyoung Ock, Public Relations Team: T +82 2 2014 6552 / kyoungock81.lee [at] samsung.com
