Simon Morley’s Artsonje lounge project presents a selection of works produced between 2000 and 2014 – ‘Book-Paintings’, ‘Paragraph-Paintings’, a ‘Signature-Painting’, an altered book, and a video. The ‘Book-Paintings’ are hand-made versions of real book covers or title pages. Morley transforms a book into a monochrome painting. In the ‘Paragraph-Paintings’ he paints directly on the pages of books, changing text into colour, and transforming a book page into a geometric abstract painting. In the ‘Signature-Paintings’ he is interested in the visual and abstract qualities of handwriting, and in how a simple change in orientation (from horizontal to vertical) brings these qualities to the fore. Morley is interested in the relationship between word and image – the verbal and the visual ? and the dialogue between the past and present. He often explores cultural difference and various kinds of media migration, looking at what happens when one medium (the book or film) is moved into another medium (painting).

For this Lounge Project, Morley presents several paintings including his ‘Zarathustra’ (1924/1943/1950), ‘The Korean White’ Series, ‘Monograph’ Series and Chaekgori, and also a wall painting titled Kafka. ‘Zarathustra’ (1924/1943/1950) is a triptych that the artist had created for the Poznan Mediations Biennial. He had referred to three different German editions and each date evokes a very troubled period of German history. ‘The Korean White’Series paints books written by foreigners between 1895 and 1941 about Korea, and uses white, the characteristic Korean color. Eleven paintings in the ‘Monograph’ Series are based on books about artists published between 1930 and 1965. The color of each work is related to the original book cover and the style of the artist. As such, Morley seeks to connect his studio practice to broader cultural and historical contexts and selects the books for his work in relation to the specific cultural context of locations in which the paintings are exhibited.

+ Artsonje Lounge Project

Artsonje Lounge Project has transformed the lounge of Artsonje Center, where ‘The Books’ and Cafe are located, by each participating artist’s project since 2009. Several artists including Jeongwha Choi in 2009, Chosil Kil and Sunah Choi in 2010, Nayounggim & Gregory Maas in 2011 have presented artworks that intervene into the space of Lounge. Since 2012, Artsonje Lounge Project runs many projects instead of commissioning the selected artist for a year, in an effort to open up a space for encouraging experimental and challenging practices in a more flexible way.