La convivencia: Hojin Lee Ahn Doojin
Gallery Chosun will present a two-person exhibition by Hojin Lee and Ahn Doojin from May 9 to May 30, 2013.
《La Convivencia》 seeks to generate an energy of collision and fusion arising from the coexistence of two artists and two distinct artistic worlds. The coexistence of two different worlds goes beyond simply existing side by side; it aims to produce interactions that create an effect greater than the sum of their parts.
Lee Hojin and Ahn Doojin have each constructed their own visual universes through painting practices in which reality and unreality, figuration and abstraction intermingle. Rather than confining themselves to a fixed frame, they explore various media and embrace the fluidity and variability of the spaces in which their works are installed. Through this process, they draw viewers into immersive, fantastical environments of their own making.
Just as multiple languages allow for multiple interpretations, the two artists share similarities in genre and experiential concerns while remaining fundamentally distinct. This exhibition will reveal the spatial atmosphere generated by the coexistence of their works within a single space, incorporation murals and installation pieces. By granting predetermined themes or conceptual politics, the gallery invites viewers to experience an aesthetic of suspension, scattering, entanglement, and overlap. Through this interplay, audiences may encounter a dynamic field where difference and harmony, collision and fusion produce layered meanings. The exhibition offers another perspective on a world and culture that are in constant flux and tension.
The title 《La Convivencia》 refers to a period in medieval Spain (711-1492) during which Christianity and Islam coexisted. At a time when much of Europe excluded regions other than Christianity and experienced what has often been described as a “dark age,” Muslim, Jewish, and Christian cultures in Spain converged to produce an advanced and vibrant civilisation. It was an era in which thought and culture flourished in artistic expression. Some historical perspectives suggest that the knowledge cultivated through this cultural fusion later flowed into the rest of Europe, stimulating intellectual and cultural development and ultimately contributing to the foundations of European modernity
_Lee Sangho (Gallery Chosun)
Translated by Gallery Chosun