artist write up-bahk seonghi

7/27/2019 Artist Write Up-Bahk Seonghi

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Bahk Seonghi

Bahk Seong Ghi, born in 1966 is known for his large scale sculptures in charcoal, stainless steel and

wood, received his masters degree in Chung-Ang University, South Korea and soon continued to be

further trained as a sculptor at the Accademia di Belle Arti Brera, in Italy.

Korean artist Bahk Seon Ghi began working with charcoal in 1980s where he created mid-relief

sculptures suspended from nylon filaments, capturing everyday objects or simple geometric shapes

based on sketches made in an apparently architectural approach.

The tree in nature has been a closest friend and companion of human beingsNature dies but is

born again. It is reborn in a form of small black charcoal, another form of existence of a tree

Bahks favorite material, charcoal is deeply rooted in the traditions of his home country. The use of

charcoal springs from the Korean traditional use of charcoal as a symbol of everyday tool of

purification. However, Bahks intention to use charcoal was not because it was a sy mbolic reflection,

rather, charcoal was plays an important role of drawing the space of black and white, creating a sense

of calmness. At the same time, he endows the medium with a deep meaning to symbolize bothpermanence and transience, and to illustrate the cycle of life.

I tried to present a form paradoxically with charcoal as an end of nature. I hope that this modest and

civic attempt leads you to see the importance of rebirth or recycling.

He received numerous international attentions for his mid-relief works as it often captures the viewers,

allowing them to fall into a disbelief of such mesmerizing three dimensional works. Any o ne of Bahks

mid-relief works can be identified from a distance, as he shows us the world of art philosophy and

human emotions in suspense. His sculptures illustrate to the viewers the intimate connections

between becoming, being and decay, a strong focus on transience that we can begin to consider

permanence. He is a true artist who has worked his way by experimenting with the medium used,

transforming wood into charcoal to open the door to reveal us with an entirely new perspective.

Bahks works have been collected by various organizations worldwide namely from Samsung

corporation and Hyundai in Korea, ARK Restaurants Corporation in the United States, IBIZA

Granhotel in Spain and many more. He received the Artist of Today Kim Chong Yung Sculpture

award in 2005 and had various solo exhibitions in Korea, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Germany.

Endless Enumeration in the Space:Fiction of Fabricated Image and Nature's End

Art has become more difficult year by year. The more years have passed doing my arts, the

more arts get difficult. The reason is that the nature of arts is a way directed to essence.

My recent work has highlighted the stories about the relationship between culture and nature.Culture is the civilized world where human beings seek convenience, whereas nature is thestate naturalized by a dispensation of the universe that is far from man's strength. It is therelationship between man and nature that naturally derives from the relation of culture andnature.

The relationship between man and nature has been expressed aggressively in my work. Torepresent culture, architecture culture in which man dwells and acts, is chosen, and torepresent nature, charcoal, the last appearance of trees that stand with us in the world, ischosen. Why? It is a self-evident truth that I can think of a great number of meaning and

forms because of architecture structures being depended upon usefulness and charcoalbeing one of last appearances of nature.


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I think it is wrong if man in western materialized culture draws every center of the worldincluding the whole dispensation of the universe to mankind. I think that man is no more adifferent object than a tree that exists in nature, so that it is inevitable that man should co-exist with nature without tilting his balance into either ways in the relationship of man andnature. How do you see nature, concealed behind a history of splendid civilization which hasbeen built by contemporary mankind? On this premise, the form of this work has rooted.Strongly presented structures are the strings of nylon that are very subtle, light and nearlytransparent. In the space, the nylon enumerates logically lumps of charcoal being energy innature that symbolize vanishing into air. This structure expresses the fiction of fabricatedimage as a concept against usefulness man uses. To me, charcoal reveals a field of nature,concealing, deeply down from charcoal's surface, the fact that charcoal is residuum after atree burned in natural or ecological combustion. Eventually, charcoal is material in myexistence conditions, and out of this material does the derived effects comply with thepresented forms start. In the end, charcoal becomes brick that makes a building.

As time passes, that is manifested in my work has been transformed, in the sense of sight,

into simple and light material. Hanging is a poetic expression that penetrates inherentenvironment and architecture, and irresistible lightness of a piece.

By Bahk, Seon Ghi

Selected Exhibitions

2011 Seoul Living Design Fair, Coex Exhibition Center, Seoul, KoreaArt Stage Singapore, Marina Bay Sands Exhibition Center, Singapore

2010 Korea Tomorrow, CETEC, Ilsan, South KoreaMy Room my Atelier, Gana Art Center, Seoul, Korea

G20 Seoul Summit Celebration Exhibition for Korean Fine Arts, The NationalAssembly Library and Shuim Museum, Seoul, KoreaMACO 10, Mexican International Contemporary Art Fair, Centro Banamex,Mexico City, Mexico

2009 Kim Chong Yung Sculpture Prize, Kim Chong Yung Sculpture Museum, Seoul,KoreaKorea Tomorrow 09, SETEC, Seoul, KoreaAgainst the Sculptural: Three Dimensions of Uncertainty, Seoul Museum of Art,Seoul, KoreaKorean Eye: Moon Generation, Saatchi Gallery, London, UKShanghai International Art Fair, Gallery Artside, Shanghai, ChinaARCO International Art Fair, Madrid, Spain

2008 Kim Chong Yung Sculpture Museum, Seoul, KoreaSantander, SpainLet a Thousand Flowers, Gana Insa Art Center, Seoul, Korea

2007 Arquitectos de Cordova, Cordova, SpainACAF NY, Asian Contemporary Art Fair, Gallery K.O.N.G, New York, USAArt Fair Singapore 07, Suntek, Singapore

2006 Galeria Arte Contemporanea Jorge Shirley, Lisbon, PortugalThe Way of Viewing Objects, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea

2005 Artist of Today 05, Kim Chong Yung Sculpture Museum, Seoul, PortugalSeoul Art Fair, Gana Art Center, Hangaram Museum, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul,Korea


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artist write up-bahk seonghi

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