[Exhibition Overview]
MMCA Hyundai Motor Series 2018: CHOIJEONGHWA - Blooming Matrix, sponsored by Hyundai Motor Company, is held as a 2018 program for a long-term annual project for ten years from 2014 that supports the solo exhibition of established artists representing Korea. This series is designed to provide an opportunity to realize large-scale works for artists who have built their own unique art world, thereby providing a new momentum for transition and development in their works and bringing new vitality to Korean contemporary art. This project follows the exhibitions of Lee Bul in 2014, Ahn Kyuchul in 2015, Kimsooja in 2016 and IM Heung-soon in 2017. CHOIJEONGHWA was selected the fifth artist in this series.
Exemplifying the artist’s attitude of finding meaning from the mundane, many of the featured works in this exhibition—including Dandelion, Young Flower, and Blooming Matrix—are assembled from used items in everyday life. Indeed, ordinary objects have been characteristic materials of CHOIJEONGHWA’s art since 1993, as seen in renowned works such as Plastic Paradise, Alchemy, and Present of Century. This exhibition takes its name from the work Blooming Matrix, which refers to a space where the regional and temporal aspects of diverse objects (collected by the artist from around the world) are brought together in harmony. Breaking down the barrier between art and daily life, and between artworks and ordinary objects, this exhibition invites visitors to explore the astonishing artistic world of CHOIJEONGHWA, who is persistently pushing the boundaries of Korean contemporary art with vibrant works that use familiar materials to interact with the audience.
[Artist]
CHOIJEONGHWA shows a colorful array of installation works composed of cheap, disposable products that are familiar from daily life, such as plastic baskets, piggy banks, brooms, and balloons. By “resurrecting” mass-produced consumer goods as installations and sculptures, CHOIJEONGHWA erases the division between high-end artworks and popular culture, while invoking a crucial aspect of Korean society since the 1990s, which marked the culmination of decades of unprecedented economic growth. CHOIJEONGHWA has brilliantly integrated local and universal elements in works that reached the international stage, thus expanding the overall impact of Korean contemporary art.
