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New frontiers in Korean craft and ceramics
New frontiers in Korean craft and ceramics
Apr 2 – May 31, 2025
This exhibition focuses on the work of notable contemporary Korean artists and craftspeople, representative of a new generation invested in radical approaches to traditional Buncheong ceramics and ink painting. Blending political content and social issues with traditional motifs, techniques and aesthetics, these artists seamlessly remix cultural forms to question and critique our unsettled times. The exhibition includes ceramicists Hokyung Yon, Seungi Min, Yukyung Sin, and painters Sinhye Kim and Hyunsoo Kim.
Curated by Yujin Kim.
Curated by Yujin Kim.
Mühlebachstrasse 14
CH-8008 Zürich
Events
Apr 2, 17-20h | Opening
T +41 43 243 71 06
E info@lechbinska.com
Creators
Hokyung Yon
Seungi Min
Yukyung Sin
Sinhye Kim
Hyunsoo Kim
CH-8008 Zürich
Events
Apr 2, 17-20h | Opening
T +41 43 243 71 06
E info@lechbinska.com
Creators
Hokyung Yon
Seungi Min
Yukyung Sin
Sinhye Kim
Hyunsoo Kim
Seungki Min is a graduate of Kookmin University, Seoul, completing a BFA in Ceramic Arts in 2002 (including a year on exchange at the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design in Halifax, Canada), and an MFA in Craft Arts in 2004. Min has won numerous awards including Bronze Prize at the 2nd TOYA Tableware Competition, 2005, and the Grand Prize at the 3rd Incheon Trend competition in 2010, and participated in international group shows such as 'Porcelain Reloaded' at the Ceramics Museum, Ludwigsburg Residential Palace, Ludwigsburg, Germany, 2013, and 'Take the old Create a new' at the Fu Guei Tau Yuan Arts & Culture Center, Taipei in 2015.
Inspired by the spatial resonance and luminous colors of Korean Buncheong and traditional Celadon glaze, Min has spent more than a decade exploring the expressive potential of colored ceramic; his distinctive color schemes a result of systematic combinations of soil, clay, glaze, and temperature when firing. Min’s characteristic geometric color-field compositions began with his early color separation works in which a single surface is divided between two glazes (most often contrasting celadon-blue and Buncheong-white), while more recent series concentrate on the proportion and depth of color on a surface, with the introduction of three-dimensional forms, such as right-angle columns, as a means of further interrogating visual effect.
Inspired by the spatial resonance and luminous colors of Korean Buncheong and traditional Celadon glaze, Min has spent more than a decade exploring the expressive potential of colored ceramic; his distinctive color schemes a result of systematic combinations of soil, clay, glaze, and temperature when firing. Min’s characteristic geometric color-field compositions began with his early color separation works in which a single surface is divided between two glazes (most often contrasting celadon-blue and Buncheong-white), while more recent series concentrate on the proportion and depth of color on a surface, with the introduction of three-dimensional forms, such as right-angle columns, as a means of further interrogating visual effect.
Well-known for her iconoclastic ceramic creations including a plate in the shape of a cast leg, and a half-melted bottle, Hokyung Yon is an artist who challenges the conventional function of everyday objects by (re)presenting them radically changed by misuse. Through unprecedented collaborative exhibitions, product developments, and cross-genre design concepts, Yon works to expand ceramics into design, advertising, and fashion. Her collaborative exhibitions with photography, fashion and painting, include ‘Jeju International Fashion Art Exhibition. Local-Rising. Fashion x Pottery Collection’, Jeju, 2021, and ’The Postmodern Child’ at the Busan Museum of Contemporary Art (Moca Busan), Busan, 2023. She received a BFA in Ceramic Arts from Kookmin University in 2004, and co-owns the studio ‘2Ceramists’ in Icheon, Kyeonggi-Do, with her husband, Seungki Min.
Moving away from the notion of ceramics as craft towards a form of conceptual art, Yun's works deny the solidity of ceramics and perfection of technique, in favour of ideas that strip away the decoration of traditional forms and motifs. The artist's precocious, childlike language - quirky drawings, playful phrases, and expletives - takes an irreverent approach to Korea's rich ceramic tradition.
Moving away from the notion of ceramics as craft towards a form of conceptual art, Yun's works deny the solidity of ceramics and perfection of technique, in favour of ideas that strip away the decoration of traditional forms and motifs. The artist's precocious, childlike language - quirky drawings, playful phrases, and expletives - takes an irreverent approach to Korea's rich ceramic tradition.
Yougyung Sin received a BFA in Ceramic Arts from Ewha University in 2007, and an MFA from Kookmin University in 2009. In 2014, she completed an MFA in ceramics and glass at Koblenz University of Applied Sciences, Germany. In addition to solo exhibitions at Gana Artspace, Seoul 2010, and the Linz Kunstuniversität Gallery in 2013, she has participated in various groupexhibitions and fairs such as Talente 2012 International Craft-fair Munich, and International Ceramic Biennale Kafenberg, 2013. She is a laureate of the Frechen Ceramic Award 2012 and the Bavarian State Prize 2025.
In her “A Big Hug” “Layers” series, which features both basket-like shapes and woven textures drawn in glaze onto the surface of each object, Sin adds a painterly effect unusual in traditional inlay decoration. First the basket structure is engraved, filled with white clay, and sanded, before a white clay slip – sometimes thicker and opaque, sometimes more transparent – is applied with a large brush, producing a variety of surface contrasts. Finally, the work is coated in an ash-based glaze before being firing at extremely high temperature. Sin’s objects, however, do not have a typical basket shape, their disproportionately large handles and narrow raised bases being more reminiscent of a cat’s face or the shape of a hat, with such unexpected associations often giving rise to a sense of déjà vu. This same ambiguity is bought to bear in her series “Home-Island-Home” and “whale”, where the form and function of a stool are playfully abstracted in a large-scale hollow vessel reminiscent of an hourglass. Here, just as in her smaller works, the tension between elegant ornamentation and enigmatic, sculptural ceramic, leaves us uncertain what manner of object we encounter an effect entirely Sin’s own.
In her “A Big Hug” “Layers” series, which features both basket-like shapes and woven textures drawn in glaze onto the surface of each object, Sin adds a painterly effect unusual in traditional inlay decoration. First the basket structure is engraved, filled with white clay, and sanded, before a white clay slip – sometimes thicker and opaque, sometimes more transparent – is applied with a large brush, producing a variety of surface contrasts. Finally, the work is coated in an ash-based glaze before being firing at extremely high temperature. Sin’s objects, however, do not have a typical basket shape, their disproportionately large handles and narrow raised bases being more reminiscent of a cat’s face or the shape of a hat, with such unexpected associations often giving rise to a sense of déjà vu. This same ambiguity is bought to bear in her series “Home-Island-Home” and “whale”, where the form and function of a stool are playfully abstracted in a large-scale hollow vessel reminiscent of an hourglass. Here, just as in her smaller works, the tension between elegant ornamentation and enigmatic, sculptural ceramic, leaves us uncertain what manner of object we encounter an effect entirely Sin’s own.
Hyunsoo Kim received a BA in Painting and an MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Ewha Woman’s University, Seoul. Solo exhibitions include ‘Dangerous Play-Homolude’ at Placemak, Seoul, 2023, ‘playing on the border’, Keumho Museum, Seoul, 2019, and ‘One breath step’ at Duru Art Space, Seoul, 2005. Kim has participated in group exhibitions and fairs around the world, including Biniartsspace Art Fair, Jeju, 2023-2024, Pre-International Incheon Women Artist’s Biennale, Incheon, 2006, Chicago Art Fair, 2005-2007, and Shanghai Art Fair, 2004. In 2024 Kim was a finalist for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize, Hong Kong.
Reflecting complex contemporary social issues through the lens of traditional folk art, Hyunsoo Kim’s work considers the place/fate of nature and humanity in a world riven by violence, political upheaval, and the relentless churn of offensive media. The languages of ‘Minwha’ - rustic Korean folk painting, thought to bring good luck and health - and Joseon ‘literati’ landscape painting, have been at the centre of Kim’s artistic project for more than twenty years, informing both the content and conceptual idealism of her work. Building on the semantic web of iconography implicit in the history of these art forms, and extending to domestic processes from women's daily lives such as embroidery and natural dye, Kim’s recent paintings are hybrid landscapes based on various well-known fairy tales, incorporating animal and plant motifs and materials.
Reflecting complex contemporary social issues through the lens of traditional folk art, Hyunsoo Kim’s work considers the place/fate of nature and humanity in a world riven by violence, political upheaval, and the relentless churn of offensive media. The languages of ‘Minwha’ - rustic Korean folk painting, thought to bring good luck and health - and Joseon ‘literati’ landscape painting, have been at the centre of Kim’s artistic project for more than twenty years, informing both the content and conceptual idealism of her work. Building on the semantic web of iconography implicit in the history of these art forms, and extending to domestic processes from women's daily lives such as embroidery and natural dye, Kim’s recent paintings are hybrid landscapes based on various well-known fairy tales, incorporating animal and plant motifs and materials.
After graduating from Seoul National University in 2002 with a BA in Archeology and East Asian Art History, Shinhye Kim completed an MFA in Oriental Painting at Seoul National University, going on to lecture widely in well-known art academies across Korea. In addition to solo exhibitions at Hanwon Museum of Art, Seoul, 2011, and Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwangju, 2014, Kim has participated in important group exhibitions such as ‘Hommage to Whanki’ at the Whanki Museum, Seoul, 2013, ‘Confession: Advertisement, Art and the Public’ at the Ilmin Museum of Art, Seoul, 2013, and ‘Art Utopia’ at the Shinsegae Gallery, Daejeon, 2023. Her works are in the collection of Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art, National Museum of Contemporary Art (Art Bank), and Seoul Museum Of Art (SeMA).
In her paintings Shinhye Kim creates a space between real and imaginary, fusing imagery derived from the packaging of common consumer brands with those of traditional Korean landscape painting. The ubiquity of labels for products such as bottled water and soda, wine and champagne, so often featuring idealised illustrations of natural landscapes, provide Kim with plentiful source material. Kim extracts and transforms these images into larger, dreamlike landscapes, using thick Korean paper and washes of ink to delicately depict bottles, trademarks, characters and images with meticulously executed technique. Kim’s detailed depictions of objects and familiar pictorial compositions make her paintings appear almost hyper-realistic: despite, or perhaps because of the critique of realism implicit in her method; these images of nature, idealised and consumed, come to represent a part of the nature we dream about, whether we like it not. By linking these commercial fantasies with the traditional genre of ‘Gyannyumsansu’ (literally ‘mind landscape’), Kim reflects on the meaning of nature in a consumer society, while also recognising a deeper, unchanging human need for such idealism.
In her paintings Shinhye Kim creates a space between real and imaginary, fusing imagery derived from the packaging of common consumer brands with those of traditional Korean landscape painting. The ubiquity of labels for products such as bottled water and soda, wine and champagne, so often featuring idealised illustrations of natural landscapes, provide Kim with plentiful source material. Kim extracts and transforms these images into larger, dreamlike landscapes, using thick Korean paper and washes of ink to delicately depict bottles, trademarks, characters and images with meticulously executed technique. Kim’s detailed depictions of objects and familiar pictorial compositions make her paintings appear almost hyper-realistic: despite, or perhaps because of the critique of realism implicit in her method; these images of nature, idealised and consumed, come to represent a part of the nature we dream about, whether we like it not. By linking these commercial fantasies with the traditional genre of ‘Gyannyumsansu’ (literally ‘mind landscape’), Kim reflects on the meaning of nature in a consumer society, while also recognising a deeper, unchanging human need for such idealism.
