Sequins, staples, nails, wood, granite, Legos: these are just some of the materials that obsessive (and Hyundai would claim "great") hands have arranged into very interesting art. It's easily the most fun and accessible exhibition going. Where else will you find a pair of jeans stitched entirely out of Levi tags?
Gone are all other art questions like What does it mean?, replaced instead by a marvel of technique. Tom Stoppard wrote, "Imagination without skill gives us contemporary art." The exact opposite seems to be true sometimes in Korea. While some of "The Great Hands" artists seem to lack imagination (ie. a glass-bead rendition of James Dean), there is no dearth of skill. In fact, it is the same single-minded and unyielding work ethic that has driven the Korean economy for the last 20 years. And it's great to see it manifest in more creative ways.
Some of the artists are already quite well-known. Chun Kwangyoung's lunar landscapes made from Korean mulberry paper seem to be everywhere, for instance. One work varies very little from another from what I've witnessed. I would say Yoon Jongseok's acrylic dots of folded pajamas are pretty predictable too. Maybe an exhibition of just one of these artists would lose its charm fairly quickly. Credit the curators at Gallery Hyundai for combining an eclectic group and creating quite a show.
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