“Partners Desk” Installation view ©ThisWeekendRoomThisWeekendRoom presents “Partners Desk” by Mirim Chu and Hong Seung-Hye, through May 18.
The exhibition title “Partners Desk” refers to a face-to-face desk where two people usually sit facing each other. The object lets one imagine Mirim Chu and Hong Seung-Hye meeting for a long time, bringing out their respective worlds and putting puzzles together with no answers. Both artists are fascinated by urban environments, where they continue to experiment with formative characteristics and implement their work in a way that is familiar with digital tools. They also have things in common in that they are not tied to a single medium and skillfully devise optimized formats according to the given space and situation.
However, the focus of this curatorial practice is on the fact that the two artists have similar interests but different starting points and directions in their work, and the temporary encounter through the exhibition will bring the gap between their perspectives and attitudes to the center of the present. Therefore, the meaning of this desk revolves around several loose strategies.
Mirim Chu (b. 1982) is using pixels as elements in her work, Chu engages in formative experiments that go beyond design and fine art. She critically explores keywords related to computer graphics, pixels, and the internet etc., and she has great interest in producing work where the cross- sectional aspect of images used in social network sites may be viewed from various angles. Chu held her solo exhibitions at Space Willing n Dealing (Seoul, 2014), The great collection (Seoul, 2022), BAIK ART (Seoul, 2023), and more. Major participating group exhibitions are “WONDERFUL PICTURES” (Ilmin Museum of Art, Seoul, 2009), “THREE WISHES FOR CHRISTMAS” (art center nabi, Seoul, 2012), “25.7 Seoul focus” (Buk-Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, 2017), “Two pillars and seven letters” (Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, 2018), “Korean Young Artist 2023” (MMCA, Gwacheon, Korea, 2023).
Hong Seung-Hye (b. 1959) combines, disassembles, and accumulates rectangular pixels, a basic unit of digital imagery, to create proliferating forms that are organic and dynamic. These images go through a number of formal transformations as they move out of the computer monitor into everyday spaces, expanding to flat and sculptural forms, animation, design, and architecture. As such, with a sustained interest in abstraction-as-spatial construction, Hong explores the relationship between the work’s inner structure and the architectural space where it manifests a reality where geometric abstraction comes to life. Since 1986, Hong has held more than thirty solo exhibitions including ”Organic Geometry” (Kukje Gallery, Seoul, 1997), ”Square Square” (Atelier Hermès, Seoul, 2012), “Point·Line·Plane” (SeMA Buk-Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, 2016). She participated in numerous shows both in Korea and abroad, including Gwangju, Busan, and the Seoul Mediacity Biennale, as well as major group exhibitions at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Korea, Seoul Museum of Art, Ilmin Museum of Art, Korean Cultural Center in Paris, and The Museum of Modern Art of Bologna.
