Partial exhibition view of "MMCA Hyundai Motor Series 2022: Choe U-Ram: Little Ark" at the MMCA. Courtesy of the MMCA.The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) presents “The MMCA Hyundai Motor Series: Choe U-Ram: Little Ark”, through February 26, 2023.
Since 2014, the “MMCA Hyundai Motor Series”, in collaboration with Hyundai Motor Company, has organized annual exhibitions of renowned Korean artists. Its first project started with Lee Bul (b. 1964) and has held solo exhibitions of Ahn Kyuchul (b. 1955), Kimsooja (b. 1957), Im Heung-soon (b. 1969), Choi Jeong Hwa (b. 1961), Park Chan-Kyong (b. 1965), Haegue Yang (b. 1971), and MOON Kyungwon & JEON Joonho (b. 1969). This year, the MMCA Hyundai Motor Series features artist Choe U-Ram (b. 1970).
Influenced by his grandfather, a car manufacturer, the artist Choe U-Ram creates anima-machines, which are kinetic sculptures that move slowly and repeatedly like living organisms. Choe utilizes multiple disciplines, including biology, philosophy and religion, archeology, and robotics, to create imaginative and lyric worldviews through cold metallic bodies.
At the entrance to the exhibition is a large-scale installation that is being widely shared on social media platforms. In Round Table, headless straw dolls form a circle holding a huge round iron plate with a head rolling on it. The straw dolls try to win the head, but the taller the doll stands, the further away the heads move. And above their heads are three huge black birds circling, appearing to be watching over them.
Little Ark, the largest artwork in the exhibition, sails for twenty minutes with seventy oars made of scrap paper boxes to a peculiar machine sound. The ark symbolizes salvation, but there are two captains pointing in opposite directions, and in the center of the ship is a lighthouse that should be guiding the ark’s direction outside the ark. On the ship’s rear wall is a projection of countless doors of various types opening but never reaching the destination.
The artworks in the exhibition encourage visitors to contemplate the future of civilized society and human desire.
Choe U-Ram has held solo exhibitions at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (Taiwan, 2017), the Frist Art Museum (Nashville, 2010), and the Mori Museum of Art (Tokyo, 2006). His works have been featured in a number of group exhibitions, including those at the Amorepacific Museum of Art (Seoul, 2019), Singapore Art Museum (Singapore, 2016), the MMCA (Seoul, 2013), Daegu Art Museum (Daegu, 2013), and Manchester Art Gallery (Manchester, 2008). His works are in the collections of a number of renowned art institutions, such as the MMCA (Seoul), the Seoul Museum of Art (Seoul), the Leeum Museum of Art (Seoul), and the Newark Museum of Art (New Jersey).
