PRESENTATION:Suki Seokyeong Kang, Mountain—Hour—Face
Suki Seokyeong Kang’s research-driven practice spans across media, incorporating sculpture, painting, video, installation, and performance, as she investigates the notion of space and its relationship to an individual’s social position within society. Kang appropriates the formal language of the grid used in traditional Korean musical notation as a spatial and social structuring device.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: MCA Denver Archive
In Suki Seokyeong Kang’s works the grid is translated and reproduced as standing formations that balance against, hinge on, and even protrude from the wall. In her works, the sculptures in the space appear and are further activated in her videos or performances. Hwamunseok– mats used in traditional Korean court dances – produced from woven sedge by Korean craftswomen. Each of these signals the minimum space an individual is provided in society. As these notations multiply, Kang configures them into a rich visual score suggesting the possibility of a collective consciousness rooted in individual action. The exhibition “Suki Seokyeong Kang: Mountain—Hour—Face” feature a wide array of works the artist has developed over the past several years. The formal experimentation and the visual exuberance of Suki’s work is presented in a space deeply connected to the landscape and its abundance, ensuring a site-responsive presentation that will reinforce the power and beauty of her objects. The exhibition’s title “Mountain—Hour—Face”, can be read as a poetic phrase and by its individual components, utilizing the homonyms “hour” and “our” to suggest a reflection on the collective vision of humanity and nature. Experimenting with the expansive possibilities of painting as a medium through a variety of media and methods, including two dimensional work, sculpture, installation, video, and performance (“activations”), Suki Seokyeong Kang’s oeuvre encompasses a wide range of artistic, cultural, and social contexts that are at once traditional and contemporary. “Willow Drum Oriole” the title of a new video work, is a reference to the sages of yore who would read the movements and sounds of the oriole flying in and out of the leaves of willow trees, as if weaving a thread into the fabric of the landscape. Using this metaphor, the artist symbolically reveals a defining characteristic of her work: sensitivity to audiovisual and tactile awareness, combined with spatiotemporal experience. The exhibition unfurls like a landscape painting, spread across and resounding synesthetically through a three dimensional space; in it are mountains reifying the four seasons of the year, day and night stretched over the floor and walls, ears wide open and hovering in the air, narrow yet rich meadows and rounded figures roving around only to linger in place, and various rectangular frames creating spaces for each work, while invisibly delineating the composition of the exhibition. The structures created therein exude rich reverberations arising from between the frames and margins, warmth and coolness, softness and hardness, stillness and movement.
Photo: Installation view of Suki Seokyeong Kang: Willow Drum Oriole, 2023. Courtesy ofthe artist and Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul. Photo: Cheolki Hong
Info: Curators: Miranda Lash and Leilani Lynch, The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (MCA Denver), 1485 Delgany St, Denver, CO, USA, Duration: 21/2-4/5/2025, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 12:00-19:00, Sat-Sun 10:00-17:00, https://mcadenver.org/
Right: Suki Seokyeong Kang, Mat 55 x 40 — Bold #21-02, 2021, Painted steel, woven dyed Hwamunseok, thread, wood frame, brass bolt, leather scraps, 106 1/8 x 78 1/4 x 33 3/8 inches 269.5 x 198.5 x 84.7 cm, © Suki Seokyeong Kang and Tina Kim Gallery
Right: Suki Seokyeong Kang, Rove and Round — face #23-03, 20016-2023, Painted steel, thread on dyed mesh laundry bag, thread, wood frame, brass bolts, leather scraps, wheels, 36 1/2 x 17 1/4 x 10 3/4 inches 93 x 43.5 x 27.3 cm, © Suki Seokyeong Kang and Tina Kim Gallery
Right: Suki Seokyeong Kang, Mat 61 x 81 #23-72, 2023, Painted steel, woven dyed Hwamunseok, nylon thread, thread, wood frame, brass bolt, leather scraps, 32 1/8 x 24 1/4 x 3 1/8 inches 81.6 x 61.5 x 8 cm, © Suki Seokyeong Kang and Tina Kim Gallery
Right: Suki Seokyeong Kang, Tender Meander #20-05, 2020, painted steel, thread, wire, tree trunk, leather scraps, nail, wooden wheels, 59-3/4″ × 27-3/8″ × 9-7/8″ (151.8 cm × 69.5 cm × 25.1 cm) , © Suki Seokyeong Kang, Courtesy the artist and Pace Gallery
Right: Suki Seokyeong Kang, Mat 61 × 81 #19-17, 2019, painted steel, thread, wood frame, wheels, 69-1/4″ × 25-3/4″ × 15-3/4″ (175.9 cm × 65.4 cm × 40 cm), approximate, © Suki Seokyeong Kang, Courtesy the artist and Pace Gallery
Right: Suki Seokyeong Kang, Mat 55 × 40 — Bolds #20-01, 2019-2020, painted steel, woven dyed Hwamunseok, thread, wood frame, brass bolts, leather scraps, 22-7/16″ × 16-9/16″ × 6-5/16″ (57 cm × 42.1 cm × 16 cm), each overall dimensions variable, © Suki Seokyeong Kang, Courtesy the artist and Pace Gallery
