Keunmin Lee and Man Ray “Knight Café”

Shin Gallery

poster for Keunmin Lee and Man Ray “Knight Café”

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Shin Gallery presents Knight Café, an exhibition featuring the work of Korean-born artist Keunmin Lee (b. 1982) and Man Ray (1890 - 1976). The show sees the transformation of the gallery space at 322 Grand Street into an interactive café setting, complete with tables, chairs, and chess boards.

Keunmin Lee’s artistic practice operates at the crossroads between intellect and emotion. His drawings and paintings frequently depict abstracted humanoid forms in compromised poses, physical manifestations of an intricate and fragile inner world. Often, Lee’s images are suggestive of entrails and intestinal tract, employed as catalysts to explore the private and obscure aspects of consciousness. The body is literally turned inside out to upend the human experience; that which dwells at the furthest reaches of our minds is scrutinized under a harsh and unforgiving light.
Yet Lee is comfortable in expressing the intrinsic duality of human nature. Light exists solely as a foil to the dark; the sacred incessantly solicits profanation. To that end, much of Lee’s sketching occurs in cafés, which act as public incubators for the artist’s private vision. His presence in the café places Lee in a long lineage of artists, writers, and thinkers whose daily respite ironically accompanies creation and conception.
Just as cafés remain integral components to civic life, so too does the game of chess embody the curious meeting point between leisure and elevated cognition. There is a strong tradition of artists, particularly in the early twentieth century, who developed an infatuation and preoccupation with the game. Man Ray created his first chess set in 1920, based on rudimentary abstract shapes. Over the years he produced several iterations of these imaginative pieces and boards. Though the artist made game pieces in precious metals and aluminum, the work that stands at the centerpiece of Knight Café is comprised of simple wood. This humble medium speaks to the game’s broad appeal, as it has remained a staple in the parks and public spaces of the inner city.

Shin Gallery invites visitors to pull up a chair in its Knight Café as we confound and explore the dichotomies of public and private, internal and external, cerebral and spiritual. After all, the appreciation of art provides relief from the trials and misfortunes of everyday life.
Or does it?
Checkmate.

Media

Schedule

from September 17, 2016 to October 30, 2016

Artist(s)

Keunmin Lee, Man Ray

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