Galleries in Paris

As the exhibitionCarte blanche à Min Jung-Yeonis coming to an end at the Musée national des arts asiatiques –Guimet, (Paris) the Galerie Maria Lund is showing the young Korean artist’s newest work. The immersive installation presented at the Musée Guimet brought the visitor into a forest where trees, copper pipes and large feathers intertwined until leading him/her towards obscure depths… This artwork can be read on different levels but its essence is a message of reconciliation, an incentive to cohabitate while respecting differences. Though this piece, Min Jung-Yeon expresses her hope for a common future for the two Koreas and a desire to overcome an adolescent trauma that kept her away from her childhood forest forever. Must one dive into obscurity to know, embrace, and finally be able to (re)capture the light?That is what Min Jung-Yeon seems to suggest with the title of her new show: L’aube après la nuit (Dawn after night).

In her latest works on paper, colour is much more present: subtle yet undeniable lights. The traces of large paintbrush gestures hold an important place -like a liberation, a new breath. One can recognize the impulse of certain calligraphers. Looking closer, one notices that these big movements juxtapose themselves with minuscule touches of ink or pencil. These transform the gesture into an element of landscape -the “base” of a mountain or an underwater wave -when it is not simply an expression of energy. If Min Jung-Yeon has often sought to make contraries meet through her depicted subject matters, she has now let go to express them in the differentiation of the gesture itself. A new strength emanates, an unbounded power thatarises like a storm. Or a delicate breeze that carries you…