Choi Jeonghwa graduated from the Department of Painting at Hongik University and built his foundation through work as an interior designer at architectural sites. In 1989, he founded the Institute of ‘Gasum Visual development Laboratory’, expanding his artistic world. After participating in the São Paulo Biennial in 1998, he began receiving international attention through invitations to global exhibitions. Since then, he has broadened his activities through installations and public projects using everyday consumer goods, establishing himself as a leading installation artist in contemporary Korea.
Ordinary plastic lids are transformed into
artworks. PET bottle caps, side-dish container lids, dehumidifier lids…
unattractive piles of plastic that could be thrown away at any moment become
vividly colored flowers through the artist’s touch. The flower-garden-like
piece is titled Mandala of Flowers. Installation artist Choi
Jeonghwa (53), who works with plastic items and cheap everyday goods, is this
time attempting a collaboration with the public.
Ahead of the exhibition 《Choi Jeonghwa – Total Chromatic Spectrum》 (until
October 19), opening September 4 at the former Seoul Station building ‘Culture
Station Seoul 284,’ Choi will run a ‘Let’s Gather! Plastic Lids’ campaign to
create a large installation together with ordinary participants.
Choi is the artist who stacked plastic
baskets like walls or towers on the Korean Pavilion at the 2005 Venice Biennale
and on the rooftop of the former Defense Security Command building (now the
National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul) in 2009. Through
exhibitions in Korea and abroad, including international biennales, he has
experimented with all kinds of everyday items such as scrubbing towels,
balloons, and plastic bags.
He installed a gigantic artificial flower in
outdoor spaces like San Francisco Civic Center Plaza, wrapped building
exteriors in primary-colored fabric, and piled up plastic containers of every
sort. Sieves, shopping baskets, dusters, beverage bottles, detergent
containers, and medicine bottles—everyday objects of different sizes, shapes,
and colors—have all been transformed into materials for contemporary art.
The “multiple artist” will turn the
high-ceilinged central hall beneath the domed roof of the old Seoul Station
building into his characteristic “flower field.” In the former Western-style
restaurant space—a two-story interior measuring 20.6 by 12.3 meters—he will
create a massive flower made of plastic lids.
Exhibition director Min Byeongjik, who is
organizing the campaign to collect about 300,000 lids for Mandala of
Flowers, explained, “Along with Choi’s works, this project awakens
art not as the artist’s alone but as art of participation and everyday life.”
Participants can contribute by mail or on-site installation through the Culture
Station Seoul 284 website (http://www.seoul284.org).
Various works will be presented across 25
spaces in the former Seoul Station building. Besides plastic containers, crude
materials such as artificial flowers and cheer pom-poms, through ‘clustered
production,’ reveal aesthetics and imagery different from their original forms
and uses. All the works share a strong floral imagery. Cleaning
Flower, composed of long stick brooms, mops, and dusters gathered
together, and Flower Field – The Alchemy of Flowers, built
from stacks of colorful plastic baskets, shine under lighting like crystals,
rivaling geometric sculpture or dazzling chandeliers.
In addition to new works and pieces from
his collection, the artist will present Golden Flower,
insured for about 400 million won and borrowed from a Hong Kong company
specifically for this ‘flower’ exhibition. Daily of Flowers,
consisting of eight seven-meter-tall towers made of plastic baskets installed
in the Seoul Station outdoor plaza, will be unveiled on the 15th.
