○ Title : Kabbala
○ Period : July 7, 2020 – January 3, 2021
○ Venue : Daegu Art Museum UMI HALL
○ Artist : CHOI Jeong-hwa
Daegu Art Museum holds the exhibition of CHOI Jeong-hwa Kabbala as an UMI Hall Project of 2020. Kabbala referring to “spectacularly trivial” is a 16m-tall installation work accumulated by 5,376 red and green plastic baskets that are commonly available at any Korean family house. CHOI Jeong-hwa (born in 1961), one of the most representative artists of Korean contemporary art, collects heterogeneous objects from our daily life and assembles and transform them into new art works. For instance, he creates architectural sculpture and formative works by using massively produced cheap plastic baskets, brooms, slippers, tires and pots. His art world even expands to public art maximizing everydayness deeply inherent in Korean life style beyond pop, kinetic and kitsch-like elements.
In 2018, CHOI displayed the work Min Deul Lae (Dandelion), the acronym borrowed from the Korean words “People, soil and upcoming future” in the exhibition entitled Flowers and Forest held at National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. The work based on more than 7,000 pots, steamers and frying pans given by citizens from Seoul, Busan and Daegu is a huge installation work of 9 m with 3.8 tons symbolizing flowers blooming like dandelion puffs. Like this, CHOI’s art world bringing everyday objects to a new life as contemporary art is often compared to “alchemy” and the etymological origin ofKabbala is in line with the significance.
The term Kabbala finds its etymological root from Jewish mysticism. Alchemy trying to transform the inexpensive materials into gold, based on Aristotle’s ‘Four Elements Transformation Theory’ failed to make gold but it discovered many useful materials during the process. Likewise, CHOI takes advantage of ‘plastic’ that is easily accessible and considered trivial in our daily life to show that such everyday materials can constitute excellent contemporary art. By combining quotidian objects, he successfully transform them into contemporary art and asks fundamental questions like ‘Is there division between everyday life and art?’ and ‘what is the essence of art?’
Kabbala, the collection of Daegu Art Museum, which will be unveiled at Umi Hall, is a work for citizens of Daegu who demonstrated mature citizenship overcoming COVID-19 of 2020. Preciousness of everyday life is highly valued than ever in times of pandemic, and we hope that this exhibition can provide all citizens with an opportunity of enjoying delight of everydayness and art.
○ Period : July 7, 2020 – January 3, 2021
○ Venue : Daegu Art Museum UMI HALL
○ Artist : CHOI Jeong-hwa
Daegu Art Museum holds the exhibition of CHOI Jeong-hwa Kabbala as an UMI Hall Project of 2020. Kabbala referring to “spectacularly trivial” is a 16m-tall installation work accumulated by 5,376 red and green plastic baskets that are commonly available at any Korean family house. CHOI Jeong-hwa (born in 1961), one of the most representative artists of Korean contemporary art, collects heterogeneous objects from our daily life and assembles and transform them into new art works. For instance, he creates architectural sculpture and formative works by using massively produced cheap plastic baskets, brooms, slippers, tires and pots. His art world even expands to public art maximizing everydayness deeply inherent in Korean life style beyond pop, kinetic and kitsch-like elements.
In 2018, CHOI displayed the work Min Deul Lae (Dandelion), the acronym borrowed from the Korean words “People, soil and upcoming future” in the exhibition entitled Flowers and Forest held at National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. The work based on more than 7,000 pots, steamers and frying pans given by citizens from Seoul, Busan and Daegu is a huge installation work of 9 m with 3.8 tons symbolizing flowers blooming like dandelion puffs. Like this, CHOI’s art world bringing everyday objects to a new life as contemporary art is often compared to “alchemy” and the etymological origin ofKabbala is in line with the significance.
The term Kabbala finds its etymological root from Jewish mysticism. Alchemy trying to transform the inexpensive materials into gold, based on Aristotle’s ‘Four Elements Transformation Theory’ failed to make gold but it discovered many useful materials during the process. Likewise, CHOI takes advantage of ‘plastic’ that is easily accessible and considered trivial in our daily life to show that such everyday materials can constitute excellent contemporary art. By combining quotidian objects, he successfully transform them into contemporary art and asks fundamental questions like ‘Is there division between everyday life and art?’ and ‘what is the essence of art?’
Kabbala, the collection of Daegu Art Museum, which will be unveiled at Umi Hall, is a work for citizens of Daegu who demonstrated mature citizenship overcoming COVID-19 of 2020. Preciousness of everyday life is highly valued than ever in times of pandemic, and we hope that this exhibition can provide all citizens with an opportunity of enjoying delight of everydayness and art.
