TRUTH: Choi Jeong Hwa

As a visual artist and founder of Gaseum studio, Choi Jeong Hwa blurs the boundaries between art, graphic design, industrial design, and architecture. A contemporary of artists such as Bahc Yiso, Beom Kim and Lee Bul, Choi was part of a generation whose unique and varied practices gave rise to Seoul's bourgeoning art scene in the 1990s. Trained in Korea during a period of rapid modernization and economic growth, the artist’s work acknowledges and internalizes the processes of consumption and the distribution of goods.

Choi Jeong Hwa's residency at REDCAT will culminate in his first solo exhibition in the U.S. in which Choi will invite artists and craftspeople to install works alongside his own--challenging concepts of individual authorship and originality in art. Inspired by the chaotic vibe of local outdoor markets, his practice playfully interrogates the preciousness of art works in a rapidly-changing, consumer-frenzied culture. For a recent exhibition at the Ilmin Museum in Seoul, the artist stacked brightly-colored plastic baskets in an interlocking, brick-like fashion to form a floor to ceiling, undulating wall that ran the gallery's perimeter. This monumental display of cheap plastic goods not only calls attention to the beauty of mechanical processes but also the absurd excess that reconsiders art’s privileged relationship to everyday objects and experience.

Choi's ambitious and often boisterous installations are inspired by the informal economies of exchange. For REDCAT, Choi will radically transform the gallery space and the lounge/bar of REDCAT in order to collapse the rarefied space of art and the public space of everyday life. Part of the exhibition will function as a marketplace where goods are available for sale.

Born 1961 in Seoul, Korea, Choi received a BFA at the Hong Ik University in Seoul. He has been included in the 51st Venice Biennale, 2004 Liverpool Biennial, 2002 and 2006 Gwangju Biennales, 1998 São Paulo Bienal, as well as exhibitions at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and Ilmin Museum, Seoul. Choi lives and works in Seoul.

Truth: Choi Jeong Hwa is made possible in part by the Nimoy Foundation.

TRUTH: Choi Jeong-Hwa