NYAB Event - Hyung Koo Kang Exhibition

Hyung Koo Kang Exhibition

Arario Gallery

This event has ended.

Hyung Koo Kang is hailed as one of the most important portraitist working in Korea today. Inspired by the many interpretations that a fleeting facial expression can yield, he began his methodical investigation of the human face more than 20 years ago.
While Kang frequently paints familiar faces—Vincent Van Gogh, Salvador Dali, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, and Abraham Lincoln among them—his repertoire of larger-than-life size portraits includes anonymous subjects that range in age and ethnicity. Aerosol cans are used to create his velvety, slick surfaces on canvas and aluminum. Brushes, Q-tips and other tools are employed to fabricate details of skin and hair that only a microscopic device might reveal. Kang’s blown up studies result in portraits that place the viewer literally eye-to-eye with the sitter.
In Warhol (2008), an iconic image of the deceased artist is copied onto four large canvases. Each painting depicts the left or right side of Warhol’s face split exactly down the center. Two of the canvases hang side-by-side to create the whole; the two remaining pieces hang on either side of this central portrait. Bright hues coat each canvas, referring to Warhol’s celebrated silkscreen work. Here, Kang demonstrates his own practice of repetition, which manifests either in a single piece, but, more often, in recurring depictions of the same subject. Other works on view include the solemn Lincoln (2008), the presidential figure who resonates with America’s recent political discourse; Audrey, which simultaneously captures the youth and adulthood of the well-known actress; and Marilyn Monroe (2009), a disconcerting image of the celebrity that Kang distorts to the point of caricature.

Kang emerged as a full-time painter later in life. Going to school in the late 1970s, he closely studied the work of artists such as Chuck Close, Salvador Dali, and Leonardo da Vinci. It was not until 30 years after graduating from art school that Kang’s work came into public view. In 2007, as the art market was beginning to feel the pull of economic decline, Kang’s work went to auction for the first time; Gogh (2006), sold for more than $350K. His work has continued to generate enthusiasm, leading to this milestone exhibition—the artist’s first in the United States. Arario New York’s exhibition runs concurrently with Kang’s presentation at Arario Seoul.

[Image: Hyung Koo Kang "Warhol (detail)"(2008) Oil on canvas, 194 x 130 cm, each panel. Private collection.]