Little ASJC

21.04.2021–22.10.2021

Moonlight Crown – Intimate Sisters is a twin exhibition of Yeesookyung’s solo exhibition Moonlight Crown, opening at Art Sonje Center from July 29 to September 26 . In Seoul, human-sized sculptures with forms each taken from different crowns are introduced.

The sculpture which is a crown but too large and heavy to be placed on the head, becomes its own body intertwined with Eastern and Western myths, symbols from totems associated with faith and images derived from the author’s imaginary world. The three pieces installed in Kunsthal Aarhus are quite small, black sculptures, connected to those in Seoul.

Using fragments of various handcrafted materials, the artist covers the surface of the sculpture in a focused, automatic-technical way inherent in her own body. This method of work extends from her paintings, including the series of Daily Drawing (2005-present), and her current work of reattaching fragments of broken pottery.

The video Whisper only to you (2019), which is shown too in this exhibition, partially illuminates the artist’s painting Flame (2007) with a flashlight. Following scenes of paintings filled with bizarre and mysterious forms, the artist recites words in a near whisper that are almost impossible to understand. Artist Yeesookyung reveals a world of nonlinear abyss without distinction between human and nonhuman beings, facts and myth, and life and death through various forms such as paintings, sculptures, performances, and videos.

About the Artist

Yeesookyung’s solo exhibitions include: Whisper Only to You, Museo Madre and Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy (2019), Yeesookyung: Contemporary Korean Sculpture, Asia Society Texas Center, Houston, USA (2015), Saint Breeders, Atelier Hermès, Seoul, Korea (2015), When I Become You, Daegu Art Museum, Daegu, Korea (2015), When I Become You, Yeesookyung in Taipei, Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan (2015), Jung Marie’s Jeongga, Yeesookyung’s Devotion, Arko Art Center, Seoul, Korea (2010), Yeesookyung im Schloß Oranienbaum, Museum Schloß Oranienbaum, Dessau, Germany (2009).

Yeesookyung’s work has also been included in major international exhibitions such as Being Human: An exhibition of modern sculpture, Bristol Museum & Art Gallery in UK (2019), Exhibition Paradoxa. Art from Middle Korea, Casa Cavazzini in Udine, Italy (2018), The 57th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Viva Arte Viva in Venice, Italy (2017), [ana] please keep your eyes closed for a moment, Maraya Art Center in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (2015), My Blue China, Fondation d'entreprise Bernardaud Limoges in France (2015), among others.

Yeesookyung’s works are in the permanent collections of the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Korea, the Leeum Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in USA, Museum of Fine Arts Boston in USA, IFEMA ARCO Collection in Madrid, Echigo-Tsumari City Collection in Japan, the British Museum in London, and the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas in USA, M+ Museum in Hong Kong, among others.

Don Sunpil is an artist who dryly dismantles objects and backgrounds that often appear in subcultures, as well as the affection for them . He brings subculture and animation into art world discourse, transmitting and intersecting the methods of each. Don Sunpil regards figures from the so-called “otaku” culture as an interesting social phenomenon and clue to a shared aesthetic sense, rather than a simple hobby or lighthearted subject.

In Little Art Sonje Center’s third exhibition Cats on Mars, Don Sunpil presents a documentary video work, Adventure (5) Time (2020), which begins at the humorous enquiry, “Why do cats like empty delivery boxes?” The protagonist of the film, who travels overseas for a limited edition figure, ends the trip in failure. However, later the figure is simply delivered to the house through an online shopping platform ’Auction.’ This experience leads the protagonist to an idea, while also providing clues to understanding the cat’s behavior, which was the starting point of the video. Eventually the protagonist realizes that the action of a cat moving its body into an empty box predicts “the process of moving things is of more significance than the objects themselves.”

No. 187 figure (2021), the limited edition figure that kick-started the story, Non-Fungible Box (2021), an object shaped as a delivery box shipped from Japan to Korea with the limited edition figure, and Goods Hugger (2021), a figure as an embodiment of the changing process of the desire to buy things, will be displayed along with the video.

About the Artist
Don Sunpil
(Born 1984 in Korea)
Don Sunpil lives and works in Seoul. Solo shows include Portrait Fist (Art Sonje Center, Seoul, 2020), Kitsutaiten (Arario Museum, Seoul, 2019), METAL EXP: The Loner’s Moving Time (Tastehouse, Seoul, 2018), Minmay Attack Re-Re-Cast (Audio Visual Pavilion, Seoul, 2016). He has participated in group shows No Space, Just a Place. Eterotopia (DAELIM MUSEUM, Seoul, 2020), Image: Fascinating Alchemy (Danwon Art Museum, Ansan, 2019), Please Note: The Design is Subject to Change (Grassi Museum, Leipzig), Remembering or Forgetting (Arario Gallery, Seoul, 2018) among others. He is the author of Figure TEXT: Wonder Festival Report (Seoul: Kitsutaiten, 2019), Minmay Attack: Re-Re-Cast (Seoul: AVP, 2016), Figure TEXT (Seoul: YOUR-MIND, 2016).

Donghee Kim incorporates materials and forms from urban architecture or structural facilities into his sculptures and installations . Kim, who works as both an exhibition space designer and an artist, create artworks that acts as supports for the other artworks in the space while happening to guide certain momentary experiences in the exhibition space depending on the location of works exhibited, the movement of the audience or the weather. Like deciding shapes of sculptures by overlapping the floor plans for the interior design onto the real and virtual spaces, Kim has worked with his attention to the relationship between sculpture and space/architecture, exploring the unstable gap between materials in reality and the smooth perfection on the computer screen.

In the first exhibition of Little ASJC, A Two-point Arc and its Rotation, Kim juxtaposes the floor plans of Art Sonje Center and Kunsthal Aarhus and discovers that there is a shared architectural feature between the two: a curved wall. Taking this curved wall as a starting point, Kim installs five different structures on the first floor of Kunsthal Aarhus. These structures, which reflect the architectural elements of Art Sonje Center, such as its columns and entrance, are installed at the corresponding locations of those in Kunsthal Aarhus. These structures will remain in the same place throughout the little Art Sonje exhibitions series in Kunsthal Aarhus until August, serving as pedestals for the other artworks that will be introduced in the following exhibitions. Taking the center point of the Art Sonje Center’s arc as an axis of rotation, the video Camera Test: Tracking Lines imagines how the building's floor plan outside the window would move when the monitor is set as a window.