Doosan Gallery New York is pleased to present Flags, a group exhibition curated by 2016 Doosan Curator Workshop participant Sue Kim from January 31st through February 23rd, 2019. Featuring works by Kim Lee-Park, Noh Suntag, Park Gunwoong, Grim Park, and Andeath, Flags is an exhibition Kim has built through the process of observing, interacting with, and studying her family, neighbors, and others in and around her life: separate generations of a seemingly homogeneous Korean society.

Kim Lee-Park: As a floriculturist, Kim Lee-Park’s work presents gestures representing a caring for and reviving of plants, shedding light on the sentimentality of those who find stability in nature and encouraging viewers to observe the ecology of plants that live indoors. Kim reinvents the plant as a subject of ornamental consumption, dealing with contexts where plants are used as a gesture of comfort and gratitude in human affairs. In his solo exhibition Mimosa: Sensitive Plant held in Seoul in the summer of 2018, short videos of Koreans exploding from stress and anger, found on the internet, were collected, edited, and juxtaposed with Mimosa pudica and Codariocalyx motorius (dancing tree), plants which respond instantly to external stimuli. Through this work, the artist repudiates the idea of a plant as something that gives unconditionally and presents a reality in which there is no choice but to respond violently to violence.

Noh Suntag: Noh Suntag’s photographs capture in close proximity individuals and communities marginalized by authority and the capitalist system. Noh, who was a university student at the end of military dictatorship in Korea, witnessed countless political upheavals in which the government tried to prolong its reign through politics of fear and engaged himself in journalism. He voices his sociopolitical consciousness built up since then, through text and photographs and currently calls himself a recorder and a social activist. Noh captures the intense tension, desperate moments, and remnants of absurd scenes left by authority at the site of demonstrations and rallies. Noh contemplates on how the camera, situated where it is absolutely necessary, can ‘testify’ to the social problems of which the medium of photography can effectively expose. Noh often connects photographs he takes from separate sites, leading the viewer to reflect on how the same problems are instigated in different ways.

Park Gunwoong: Choosing to major in painting, Park Gunwoong originally aspired to become an artist. His involvement in socio-political activism in the 1990s, however, led him to draw banners, posters, and hanging pictures used at the site of rallies. Around this time, Park also sensed potential and his own yearning for storytelling through comics. While fulfilling his military service and for three years after, Park worked on Flower, the graphic novel that won him the Korean Published Comics Award for New Cartoonist. Since then, Park has been delivering stories hidden beneath mainstream Korean modern history through the medium of comics and in effect reflecting his conviction for human rights and strong progressive tendencies. Park shed light on the civilian massacre at the Nogeunri Twin Tunnel committed by the US army during the Korean War in Nogeunri Story and recalled the testimony of the late Kim Geun Tae, who was tortured under the military dictatorship of the 1980s, in Tale of the Beasts.

Grim Park: Grim Park is an artist who majored in Buddhist painting and deals directly with queer content. He is an uncommon Korean artist, one who has publically come out of the closet. During his time as an apprentice in Buddhist painting, he explored what is traditional and Korean and in that process, became keenly aware of the medium’s limitations and conservative restrictions; he could not reveal his true self through its original form. Since then, he began observing and participating in queer communities in which he could talk about his gender identity and ego. He began depicting beautiful queers active in social media or dating apps on silk using the same technique used for the portraits of kings. Currently Park is engaged in self-introspection through his new series of work, which transforms the Buddhist or Taoist narrative Shimwoodo (a series of epic tales that captures a young child monk’s journey with a bull to explore his true nature) into ‘Shimhodo’ (tiger). Park was awarded the 2018 Absolut Artist Award.

Andeath: Andeath experiments with ideas of copy, originality, and good design produced in industrial products and the clothing business. She extends and saves the lifespan of clothes through long-term archival/performance projects such as Daily Coordination in which she collects old clothes and objects, and Daily Spin in which she spins around wearing the old clothes. These actions shed light on the objects’ past, such as their circulation and source, while giving them a chance to dominate, at least for a moment, in the unit of a day. For this exhibition, the artist produced a video work based on her recordings of the rallies that took place in Gwanghwamun Square, the cradle of democratic rallies in Korea. On a Saturday in November 2018, the artist captured glimpses of unrealized hopes in the flags flying in the square, intersecting and saturated with multiple generations and their interests, going in there and “turning around and coming back out”.