Yuon Kibaik

         Works at: Seoul Art Space_GeumCheon

         Stays in: 2014

         Genre : Sculpture, Installation

     Education
     2007 Graduated with M.F.A at the Seoul National University, Department of Sculpture, Seoul,Korea 
     2000 Graduated with B.F.A at the Seoul National University, Department of Sculpture, Seoul, Korea

     Solo Exhibitions

     2013 "Enriched History" (supported by the Zaha Museum, Seoul)

     2011 "Green Heights+Finding the Owner" (supported by the TakeOut Drawing, Seoul)
     2011 "Green Heights"（supported by the SOMA Drawing Center, Seoul)
     2009 "52-106" (supported by the Gallery Curiosity, Seoul)
     2008 "바래다,漂,Fade" (supported by the Gallery Kwanhoon, Seoul)
     2007 "遲遲'-Slowness & Waiting" (supported by the Gallery Kwanhoon, Seoul)

Group Exhibitions(selected)

2014 Friendship toward stranger (Seoul Art Space Keumchen, Seoul)

Strolling in another world (Zaha Museum, Seoul)

2013 White&Black or Right&Wrong (the Gallery Curiosity, Seoul)

Sculpture, from independence up to now (the Independence hall of Korea, Chun An)

2011 Haiku Sculpture (the National Taiwan University, Taiwan)

Sending signal (Art space UOU, Ulsan, Korea)

2010 3nd Anyang public Art Project: Odong team, "Being-Residents" (Anyang 5-dong, Korea)

2009 coding conversation (Gallery space zip, seoul)

Daily sign (Space Hole and Coner, Seoul)

"At the Peace park & Dorasan station" (Peace park & Dorasan station, Paju, Korea)

2008 Perception & Impulse(Gallery Kwanhoon, Seoul)

"Empty of the AlienⅡ-About what, The place"Gallery Hutcheson, New York)

"Under the Cheonggye Bridge"(Cheong-gye-chun, Seoul)

"Coma"(Alternative space Chung Jeong Gak, Seoul)

2007 2nd Pocheon Asia Biennale(Pocheon Express Bus Terminal, Pochen, Korea)

Hard & Soft (Wooduk Gallery, Seoul, Korea)

A wise answer to a silly question (Gallery Kunst Doc ,Seoul)

About & Around (Culture space Doctor Dobea, Seoul)

2006 Asia Modern Art Festival (Sungsan art center, ChangWon, Korea)

Jungnangcheon Project - Hop for 'Moroco oxycephalus' (Jungnangcheon, Seoul)

human, seoul, emotion (Sejong center, Seoul, Korea)

Residency & Others

2014 6th Artist of Seoul Art Space Keumchen(residency program), Seoul

2014 granted from the Seoul Foundation For Arts, Culture and Arts Council Korea in Seoul

2013 5th Artist of Seoul Art Space Keumchen(residency program), Seoul

2013 granted from the Seoul Foundation For Arts, Culture and Arts Council Korea in Seoul

2011 TakeOut Drawing & Museum(residency program), Seoul

2009 selected the 4th Registry Artist by the SOMA Drawing center in Seoul

2007 selected the Young Artist by the Gallery KwanHoon in Seoul

Registry SOMA Drawing Center, Seoul

      주요작품

 52-106/ variable dimension/ Mixed media/ 2011

 Green Heights/ variable dimension/ mother-of-pearl, wood, thread/ 2011

 Green Heights/ Variable dimension/ doors of wardrobe inlaided with mother-of-pearl/ 2011

 Broken ( )/ 25.4×17cm/ digital print/ 2014

 remained ( )/ variable dimension/ Mixed media/ 2013

 added sights/ variable dimension/ Wallpaper/ 2014

 A room with the south window that can see the In-Wang Mt./ variable dimension/ Wallpaper,wood/ 2013

I am Finding the owner/ wood,paper,pen/ variable dimension/ 2010d by the TakeOut Drawing, Seoul)

Finding a treasure-the journey of nine years

from『Slowness and Waiting(遲遲)』to『Adjoining House Para-Site』

Park Choon Ho(a doctor of literature)

The aim of life is 'self-actualization'. To achieve self-fulfillment, we have to accumulate our direct and indirect experience in various aspects, along with a reflection on life. And we learned in middle-high school ethics class that we have to experience a rite of passage and growing pains. But, today is a globalised age of capitalism and the era that time is money. Therefore, this era demands agility to us. Due to this, this era is the time that takes it for granted that the people attach more importance to the results than the process, more competitions than cooperations. This came from the rationality of the capital. Meanwhile, the rationality of the capital has been so deep internalized in ourself. After all, we can't imagine self-actualization beyond the rationality of the capital. As a result, there is a question which we forgot for a time. That is to say, 'Who am I?'. This question is the starting point of the artist's work.

Yuon Kibaik was sceptical of himself who went on to art school and thought only about art. That was because the much-needed question to him beyond a art student was the curiosity about 'I, who is Yuon Kibaik?'. He felt that he couldn't find the answer to the question within art. So, after thinking for a long time, he wants to obtain the answer rather through the meeting with various people than through reading something. For the meeting, he spent about 6 years after graduation. What he recognised in the meantime is the fact that there were a lot of things she didn't know except art and it was really difficult for him to see things as they really are. In fact, because seeing something is determined socioculturally, from the first, the objective observation may be impossible. Nevertheless, he set off along the road.

Shortly, let's look at his past works. Meanwhile, his works were the journey which newly observed the things which he missed and passed by around him, and realized what he lacks and filled it. This work now is also in progress. When reminded that the title of his first solo exhibition in 2007 is 『Slowness and Waiting (遲遲)』, I think the title may be the manifesto which he will pursue the aesthetics of 'slowness' antithetical to 'agility' in his future works. In the project,『Unit 106, Block 52』which was started in 2007, he showed this kind of completed work through 'the meeting with the audience participating voluntarily' in the exhibition. This could be the work which establish a new relationship between the artist and audience. Since then, he did the work dismantling the objet. The exhibition,『Green-Heights』in 2011 was a case for that. Through dismantling the items at home, that was the work reflecting whether he saw them with the preconceptions or not. And he progresses his exhibition titled,『Adjoining House Para-Site』by gathering what he collected, dismantled and passed by in one place.

On the wallpapers in the exhibition, the traces of the dwellers lived in the room were recorded intact. But, the place is the room of the nameless ordinary lower middle class citizens. The scribbles which he collected and the floor paper[laminated paper lacquered with bean oil] exhibited on the exhibition walls and floors by rewriting the scribbles also aren't any different in the aspects of the source. In the exhibition, there is a work which installs the drip box from the ceiling and that box is collected in the demolished houses from the ceiling. That didn't exist in the traditional Korean-style house. But that was introduced into Korea in the past and became the part of out buildings. His works remind us of the historian who seems as if he buries himself in his studies with a methodology of 'microhistory'. On the other hand, he seems to be the philosopher who reflects in the phenomenological way. He wants to make the audience imagine and feel the stories of the nameless lives in the past times along with the layers of the wallpapers through reading the scribbles which seem to have no meanings and values to them because the audience can't understand the context exhibited in the exhibition hall, walking through the wallpapers dismantled and installed to make them guess the real space of the original room where the wallpapers were collected. In this way, his works are a installation art. And also a process-based dismantling and anti-market work.

A few years ago, I read a novel. The book was『The Alchemist』. The novel is about the journey of the shepherd boy, Santiago who finds a treasure. However, what the boy found was none other than 'ego'. I met Yuon Kibaik who just passed the age of 40, listened to the days when he wandered for about 5~6 years after graduation and to the past when he worked and saw his works. And these remind me of the very protagonist of『The Alchemist』, Santiago. Because his journey in the meantime was very much like Santiago's journey of finding a treasure. But the difference is that Yuon Kibaik's story doesn't reach to the end and is going on. We don't know what he is going to look for ultimately. He may not know what he is going to look for in the end, too. But, he is sure to find a treasure like Santiago. That is because he is ready to start off on a long journey whenever necessary without being impatient to solve much needed question to him every moment while he lives. Especially, he is open to have the honest talks with people meeting on the roads. Seeing his works, I realizes how meaningful and valuable the process which we have to undergo before we get the desired results is once again. I looks forward to the sorts of treasures what he would find ultimately.