Namhee Kwon 2015

Namhee Kwon

Born 1971 in Korea, Currently lives and works in Paris

Education

2002 Goldsmiths College, University of London (MA)

1997 HongIk University, Seoul, Korea (MFA)

1994 Gangneung National University, Korea (BFA)

Solo Exhibitions

2012 Art Monthly, Space Noon, Suwon, Korea

Namhee Kwon, Gallery Su, Songpa Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea

Namhee Kwon, KDB Gallery, Seoul, Korea

2011 Transparent Process, Untitled Gallery, Manchester Asia Triennal, Manchester, UK

Transparent Process, Tenderpixel Gallery, London, UK

2009 Numbered Paintings, Twain Tippetts Gallery, Utah State University, Utah, USA

2007 Foggy Area, KunstDoc Gallery, Seoul, Korea

2005 The thought that Counts, The Pit Foyer, Barbican Center, London, UK

Hospitalworks, Bugerhospital, Stuttgart, Germany

Hospitalworks, Mayday University Hospital, London, UK

1997 JongNo Gallery, Seoul, Korea

Selected Group Exhibitions

2015 P.R.N. No form and all substance, La Galerie, Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, France

2014 Manual_Parts and Labour, Culture factory Osan, Osan Museum of Art, Osan, Korea

Trait d’union, Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, France

Bridge to the Future, Taehwa River International Eco Art Festival, Ulsan, Korea

Spring of Buyoungwha, Gangneung Museum of Art, Gangneung, Korea

A.I.D. video show, HalProject presents, Space Mass, Seoul

2013 The Collective Diary, HalProject, Space Mass, Seoul

2012 Nature Human being and Sound, Earth Thinking, Geumgang Nature Art Biennale, Gongju, Korea

Myths the Imaginative Spaces, Tamna International Art Camp, JeJu, Korea

Doors Art Fair, CSY Gallery, Seoul

2011 Closer to Contemporary Art: Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art 2010 New Collections, Gyeonggi Museum

of Modern Art, Ansan, Korea

Summer Drawing Festival, KunstDoc Gallery, Seoul

Pink Art Fair, EHY Enterprise, Seoul

Creative and environment, Gallery 15th, Seoul

2010 Works in the Open Air, Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Ansan, Korea

Close Encounter, Jeju Museum of Art, Jeju, Korea

Myths of the city and Fantasies of Nature, Doors Art Fair Special Exhibition, Seoul

2009 Yangpyeong Eco Art Festival 2009 Echo of Eco, Yangpyeong, Korea

Boarding Bridges,Global Overseas Adopters Link Art Festival, Kring, Seoul

Breathing Out, Taehwa River Eco Art Festival, Ulsan, Korea

So close yet so far away, Main exhibition, International Incheon Women Artist’s Biennale, Korea

A Brief Message, Two people exhibition, Gallery Noon, Seoul

Ceramic Passion, International performance show, World Ceramic Biennale Korea, Icheon, Korea

2008 Post Citizen - Finding our way, Asian Contemporary Art Exhibition, Changwon Asian Art Festival,

Changwon, Korea

KCAF Korean Contemporary Art Festival, Seoul Art Center Hangaram Museum , Seoul

2007 FEAST, Gallery KunstDoc, Seoul

INSAF 2007 Insa Art Festival, Special exhibition: Public art, Seoul

Kangnung National University 2007 Faculty Exhibition, Gangnung, Korea

Finding from Neverland to Everland, Hongje stream public art project, Seoul

Tongui-dong Miscellany, KunstDoc Gallery, International Artist’s Studio, Seoul

2006 Our neighborhood, Tongui-dong public art project, KunstDoc Gallery, Seoul

2005 12 in a triangle, Chelsea Space, London

The Riddle of Style: The Young Korean Overseas Artists Exhibition, Seoul Art Center Hangaram Museum,

Seoul

Chelsea Horror Hotel, Chelsea College, London

2004 TIPP, Barcsay Gallery, Budapest, Hungary

Awards/ Grants

2014 The Korean cultural and arts promotion fund for International Artist residency, Arts Council Korea, Seoul

2011 The Korean cultural and arts promotion fund, Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture / Arts Council Korea,

Seoul

2009 The Korean cultural and arts promotion fund, Arts Council Korea, Seoul

2008 Insa Art Space archive artist, Arts Council Korea, Seoul

2004 Theatre-rites Artist’s Bursary, Arts Council England, London

Artist residency Program

2014 – 2015 Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, France

2013 – 2014 Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, France

2006 – 2007 KunstDoc International Artist’s Studio, Seoul

2005 Theatre-rites, London

2004 TIPP International Course in Contemporary Art, Hungary/ England

Symposium/ Visiting Lecture

2009 Visiting Artist, Fine Art Department, Utah State University, Utah, USA

2009 Women Artists in the ‘Post-Feminism’ Era, Incheon Women Artists’ Biennale International Symposium,

Incheon, Korea

2007 KunstDoc International Artist Studio Symposium, Seoul

2007 – 2008 Part-time lecturer, Gangnung National University, Korea

2000 – 2001 Part-time lecturer, Gangnung National University, Korea

Theatre Performance and Set Design

2005 The thoughts that Counts, The Pit, Barbican Center, London, UK

2005 Unfolding Andersen, The British Library, London, UK

2005 Hospitalworks, Mayday University Hospital, London, UK

Publications

2012 Beyond Contemporary Art, Etan Ilfeld, Vivays Publishing Ltd, London, UK

2012 Inter-Text, Untitled Gallery, Manchester, UK

Public Collections

2011 Tenderpixel Gallery, London, UK

2010 Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Ansan, Korea

2009 Gyeonggido Yangpyeonggun, Korea

Contacts

Email: namheekwon@hotmail.com

(KR)Tel: +82 (0) 17 373 7397

19-1 Tonguidong Jongnogu Seoul, South Korea, 110-040

(FR) Tel: +33 (0) 6 71 02 82 10

Cite Internationale des Arts, 18 rue de l’Hotel de Ville, 75004 Paris, France

Namhee Kwon 1

1. Meet me at the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, 2010

Permanent Installation on the roof of the Museum, 15m x 240cm x 200cm, Mixed Media, LEDlight

A site-specific installation for the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art. The curator of the Museum asked me to do

a sign for the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, which the audience could see even far away from the museum.

Namhee Kwon 2

2. Measurements, white neon, dimensions variable, 2010

I measured the actual size of the architecture. 0m, 4.5m, 9m, 13.5m, 18m.

Namhee Kwon 3

3. Meet me at the train station , blue neon, 200 x 10 x 10 cm, 2007

This installation: Meet me at the train station was in fact site-specific art project for an old hotel, which was going

to be destroyed soon after exhibition. The hotel is a place to stopover after departing from the station, connecting

the future premise that the traveler may return to the station to continue the journey. The message from the sign

implies an invitation to a continuing journey. I intended audiences to draw a personal drawing or picture of their

journey in their mind and to complete it on their own in imagination with the sentence. The work is about

perception. This work is invited for the International Incheon Woman Artist’s Biennale 2009 in Korea and Global

Overseas Adopters Link Art Festival.

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4. Exhibition view, 2008

From left <Foggy Area> 2007, <I am safe> 2001, <Numbered Paintings>2007

Foggy Area, 2007

Digital Print, 130cm x 40cm

I am safe, 2001

Mixed Media, 110cm x 75cm

Numbered Paintings, 2007

Mixed Media on Canvas, 97cm x 113 cm each

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5. Are you dreaming or are you speaking? photograph, dimensions variable, 2004

Untitled dimensions variable, 2003

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6. Empty Winds, Empty Sky, Empty Words, and Empty Waters. 2007 (A part of the work)

Mixed Media, 100m x 60cm x 50cm

A site-specific art project for a river in the city : Seoul.

When I did this public art project, this area was very gloomy and depressed part of the Seoul. I wished to change

the atmosphere of the area and installed the one hundred meters of huge scaled imaginative sign. One year after

when I visited the place again someone planted plants there, the atmosphere of the place has totally changed.

Then when I visited two years after some local primary school was having drawing exhibitions above my works. It

was real happy moment and experience as an artist.

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7.Quiet World 2009, Yangpyong, mixed media , D 60cm, 2009

<Quiet World> is an ongoing art project since 2002. I intended to question that the value of silence, stillness, and

emptiness, also the meaning of the solitude in busy contemporary society through the work: Quiet World. It has

been exhibited in many cities of the world as a public exhibition in a real site. Certainly the current world is too

noisy and full of things. ‘Silence’ and ‘Nothingness’ is one of the themes which I have been strongly pursuit.

Quiet World 2006, Seoul, mixed media , D 90cm, 2006

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8. Quiet World Sweets, sweets, 6 x 23 x 1 cm each, 2009

The significance of the work lies in the fact that the people get to take and eat the symbolic ‘sign’ of silence

through the medium of sweets. Each sweet is a contemporary art work and the audiences were confused to keep

it or to eat it. I made 20,000pieces of Quiet world Sweets and gave them away. The project was invited for the

International performance show in the world Ceramic Biennale Korea and they supported and funded the project.

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9. Transparent Process, Digital Image, 2010

Exhibition view, Jeju Museum of Art, 2010

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10. - 3 -, Neon, 2011

This is the page numbers. The white wall can be an empty one page with the full of stories, or a space can be a

page. The page continues.

- 1 -, Neon, 2011

- 2 -, Neon, 2011

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11. A writers Diary, Ink on Paper, 295 sheets, 2014 (unexhibited)

I started to write down a diary of a writer with a pen and ink on a white paper from the start to the end of the

writer’s life. I started to live the writer’s everyday life in repeat in the same way of the writer wrote her or his own

diary. It has reached over 295pages. It took 8monthes to complete. The first diary was by Virginia Woolf who

always had been given similarities of the perception with my life to me. I am trying to make a book and exhibition

with the manuscripts, and if it is possible I have a plan to try to publish it in a publishing company to complete the

project.

Namhee Kwon

Current Practice:

I am interested in representing literary poetic impressions of everyday life into the visual language, and try to

evoke spectator’s mind as if they are dreaming using texts, signs, symbols in a medium such as everyday objects,

sculpture, photographs, paintings, installations etc. I can say that I am on the line of 1960th and 70

th of conceptual

artists, who does minimalism or the Surrealists of the 1930th. I exhibit in a gallery space as well as in a real site.

At the moment it expands into performance and public event as well. <Quiet World> is one of the representative

ongoing projects I have been doing since 2002.

Light works have been my main interests recently. By using such as neon and LED lights to describe the internal

sense of the writings, books, advertisement, or signs. I have been created light works since 2007 such as <Meet

me at the train station>, <Measurements>, <Meet me at the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art>, and <-1-> etc.

Transparent Process installation of white neon numbers in Tenderpixel Gallery in London and Untitled Gallery in

Manchester in UK transformed the space into an oversize book, with each wall reminiscent of a blank page. Neon

connotes the public dimension, via signage and advertisements, its statements emboldened through the

medium’s theatricality. The installation subverts the conventional, commercial role of neon as a medium for

outdoor advertising; in contrast, the works are placed inside the gallery space to create an installation that mimics

a book devoid of content, stripped to its essence of blank pages and numbers. The works <-1->, <-2->, and <-3->

occupied each wall in order to distort the scale and placement of each number; as such, the visual perception of

the space is transformed. The <Measurements>extends this idea into the outside of the architecture and the real

world too. I would like to examine this idea with lights more inside of the architecture as well as outside of the

architecture, among other projects which I would like to proceed.