The Art Sonje Center is pleased to present “Connect 1: Still Acts” to be held from August 27 to November 20, 2016. Artists Chung Seoyoung, Sora Kim and Lee Bul will participate in the exhibition, which constitutes the first part of the “Connect” series, a survey of the history and collection of Art Sonje.

Starting from “Ssak,” the first exhibition held in 1995 at the former location of Art Sonje, the curatorial series Connect aims to revisit the 20-year journey of Art Sonje since its first opening in 1998 to the present. The three solo exhibitions in “Connect 1: Still Acts” present an overview of the programs that took place at the center between 1998 and 2004. Since its opening, Art Sonje has been in hiatus twice due to restorations, first from Spring 2005 to Fall 2006 and second from Winter 2015 to Summer 2016. “Connect 1: Still Acts” focuses on the phase before the first ‘break’ and reexamines Art Sonje’s activities introducing new works, mainly through commissions for solo exhibitions, and the establishment of its collection.

“Connect 1: Still Acts” consists of three solo exhibitions by Chung Seoyoung, Sora Kim and Lee Bul, occupying each floor of Art Sonje. On the ground floor, Sora Kim’s Library (2004) is reinterpreted from an earlier version presented at her exhibition “Antarctica” held in 2004. On the upper floor, three works Lookout (1999), Flower (1999) and Gatehouse (2000) from Chung Seoyoung’s 2000 solo exhibition “Lookout” will be reinstalled, accompanied by new work. On the top floor, Lee Bul’s Cyborg (1998) series shown at her solo exhibition “Lee Bul” in 1998 – which was actually Art Sonje’s first exhibition – will be installed, together with a rearranged version of Majestic Splendor(2016), a work seldom presented at museums since the 90s. Along with these works, projects by MUSEUM, an artist group from the 80s including Lee and other artists such as Sen Chung, Kang Hong-Goo, Nak-Beom Kho, Nakamura Masato and Seth Franklin Snyder will be included to visualize the context of Lee’s early practice as well as anticipating the upcoming retrospective of MUSEUM. All three female artists in this exhibition share an interest in inventing individual aesthetic languages to articulate the contemporaneity of each time period. “Connect 1: Still Acts,” which reexamines their major works created between the late 90s and early 2000s, is an attempt to open up discussions anew by re-contextualizing the Art Sonje Center’s collection in the present light, instead of reconstructing past works and exhibitions in a petrified manner.

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* Daily performances for Sora Kim’s Library during the exhibition at 2pm, 3pm, 4pm, 5pm, and 6pm. (Performer: Sang hyuk Han, Boma Pak)
* Performances for Chung Seoyoung’s I don’t know about the ear will be held on Aug. 26, the opening, and Nov. 5, the artist talk. (Performer: Hahm Geum yeob)