In Every Language We Know

Kumho Museum of Art holds In Every Language We Know, an annual exhibition reporting the results of the activities of the Kumho Art Studio during the year. The Kumho Art Studio was found to realize the Kumho Asiana Cultural Foundation’s core intent for finding and nurturing the new talent. This year’s Kumho Art Studio exhibition is intended to look back on the accomplishments made by Sangwon Kwak, Hyekyoung Kwon, Jungeun Kim, Hyeki Min, Minjeong Seo, Juwon Lee, Minah Cho, Heeseung Choi, and Shan Hur, nine artists in residence since autumn 2016 and have been conducting experiments in their own ways. It is also expected to serve as an opportunity to look to the future of Korean art through their possibilities and potential while reconsidering the role and direction the Kumho Art studio has to take.
The 2017 Kumho Art Studio resident artists’ exhibition In Every Language We Know brings together works by nine artists who have constructed their own language while constantly reacting to the phenomena prevalent in our time. The title of the exhibition is from the book of essays by English art critic and novelist John Berger as well as a sentence in his essay, How to Resist a State of Forgetfulness. In Berger’s view, today’s world is in a deluge of information and is pervasive with intense anxieties fostered by the media and vacant discourses raised by politicians. This world also leads us to a state of forgetfulness. Berger asserts that we have to fill up and resist this state of being emptied with “every language we know.”
This exhibition introduces the works of nine artists who have observed and explored their surroundings in their own manner in order to translate “natural appearances” that may be “messages that cannot be put into words” in a world crammed with superficial tongues. The facets of the world they have read enable viewers to draw closer to “thing” masked by such superficial terms, that is, the hidden truth, offering sympathy and thought despite their disparities. It is hoped that this exhibition will allow you to recover your own language which you have forgotten.