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Phillips Presents Briefly Gorgeous in Seoul
An Exhibition Features Works by Over 30 International Artists Including Alexander Calder, David Hockney, Scott Kahn, Hilde Lynn Helphenstein,Lauren Quin, Hernan Bas, Shara Hughes, Se Oh, Yoora Lee, and More
Highlights from Phillips’ 20th Century & Contemporary Art and Watches Hong Kong Fall Auctions Will Also be On View
Showing at the Songwon Art Center from 1-9 September, Coinciding with Frieze Seoul and Kiaf Seoul
SEOUL – 26 July 2023 – Phillips is pleased to announce Briefly Gorgeous, an exhibition curated in collaboration with Joan Tucker, and sponsored in part by Hanwha Life. The show features work by over 30 international artists, including an exciting blend of talents from a new generation of artists such as Yoora Lee, Se Oh, Susan Chen, Hilde Lynn Helphenstein, Kaifan Wang, and Ho Jae Kim; as well as art historical titans such as Alexander Calder, David Hockney, Scott Kahn, and Hernan Bas. By showcasing the dynamic interplay between fearless new voices and established luminaries, this exhibition prompts us to reflect on the significance of embracing beauty in its transitory forms, while remaining true to our own principles and values. Works featured in Briefly Gorgeous will be available for purchase through Phillips’ Private Sales in Hong Kong. Highlights from Phillips’ upcoming 20th Century & Contemporary Art and Watches Hong Kong Fall Auctions will also be on view. The exhibition will open to the public at the Songwon Art Center in Seoul’s Samcheong-dong from 1-9 September, coinciding with the second edition of Frieze Seoul, and the city’s flagship art fair Kiaf.
Takako Nagasawa, Senior International Specialist & SVP, 20th Century & Contemporary Art, Phillips, said: “Last September, we received an excellent response to our first art exhibition beyond the traditional auction calendar in Seoul, coinciding with the debut of Frieze. We are excited to return to the city again this year, with a larger scale pop-up exhibition during the art week, showcasing creations by a wide variety of well known and in-demand artists. Seoul has long been immersed in art and we have witnessed the energy of South Korea’s vibrant art scene, as well as its swift rise to prominence as a global art centre. With this exhibition, we hope to offer collectors and art enthusiasts in the region a remarkable opportunity to engage with a group of international artists, as well as viewing key highlights from a mix of collecting categories that includes watches and contemporary art from our upcoming Hong Kong Fall Auctions.”
Joan Tucker, co-curator of Briefly Gorgeous, said: "I aim to present new visions and perspectives in art. I believe art transcends boundaries. Beauty is no different. Fleeting, but always welcomed. I chose primary artists including Se Oh, Raymie Iadevaia, Marcela Flórido and others, because they all present a transitory moment. Whether shadows on leaf, mysterious facial expressions, imaginary landscapes or cutting edge fashion, they all capture a slice of this wonderful thing we term life. Whether we like it or not, everything in life is temporary. Embrace the beauty in the moment."
Briefly Gorgeous
Highlighting the exhibition is Scott Kahn’s 1985 work Resting By The Stream (illustrated in page 1). Currently based in Brooklyn, New York, Scott Kahn is best known for his strikingly atmospheric narratives rendered through the prism of memory, experience, and emotion. A master of his craft, he approaches his subject matter with a remarkable dedication to detail and careful composition to showcase a highly methodical manipulation of light, shadow, and depth.
Also among the exhibition highlights are works by contemporary masters David Hockney and Alexander Calder. David Hockney's investigation into the newly invented technology of colour photocopying in the 1980s, resulted in the series Home Made Prints, epitomizes the artist's restless drive and skill in invention. Now aged 85, Hockney’s fascination with flowers spanned almost his whole career, and his bright, cheerful palette capturing still life continues to be popular among collectors and art lovers of all genres and generations.
Highly sought after for their outstanding craftsmanship and timeless beauty, Alexander Calder’s mobiles represent the very paradigm of his genius. In One Yellow Crinkle, the magic and lyricism of Calder’s celebrated ‘Mobiles’ are presented on an intimate scale. It is one of the artist’s ‘Standing Mobiles’ and is intended to be placed on a surface. One of Calder’s more playful pieces, the work employs quintessential Calder colours of red, black, and yellow. Its particularly lighthearted title enabled the artist to indulge in the whimsical nature of his work.
Other highlights include a line-up of exciting young contemporary artists such as Se Oh, Yoora Lee, Lauren Quin, Daisy Dodd-Noble, Raymie Iadevaia, Marcela Flórido, among others. Based in Los Angeles, Korean artist Yoora Lee’s cinematic oil paintings explore the subjects of our daily lives through a series of recreated images from television and the internet. She uses wavering horizontal brush strokes to mimic video tape distortions, blurring the picture like an analog TV glitch in subtle, pastel colour. The pastel colours she works with are reminiscent of the iconic paintings by French Impressionist Georges Seurat. Los Angeles based artist Se Oh’s porcelain sculptures echo the abstract forms found in nature, render fluidity, memory, and vulnerability. In adopting techniques and imagery native to his Korean ancestry, the artist explores his complicated identity as an adopted child confronting the isolation of growing up in the American deep South.
Phillips is proud to engage Hilde Lynn Helphenstein, the artist and curator behind the wildly popular art world Instagram meme account @jerrygogosian for making a special work for Briefly Gorgeous. Untitled (Narcissus) is a sculpture depicting Narcissus’ body on a plinth with his head fully submerged into a highly polished surface, reminiscent of both water and a phone screen. The sculpture evokes humankind's long-term obsession with beauty and self-obsession while also referring to the exponential speed at which this is growing via technology.
Highlights from Hong Kong Fall Auctions
Phillips’ 20th Century & Contemporary Art Hong Kong Fall Auction is set to take place in the first week of October. One of the Evening Sale highlights will be on view in Seoul, Nicolas Party’s Still Life with an Olive. Shown at Party’s first major solo exhibition in the United Kingdom at the Modern Institute in Glasgow in 2013, the present work is one of only seven still life oil paintings made specially for this show, with each being created over a course of 10 to 20 months, where Party spends the time working and re-working his paintings, a key element that is central to the iconography of painting as a medium. Featuring a vibrant palette of yellow, red, green, and blue within a harmonious composition, it exemplifies the artist’s dexterity in colour application as well as painterly precision. Familiar fruits and objects are transformed into larger-than-life, biomorphic shapes, demonstrating Party’s playfulness with scale.
Nicolas Party’s top ten results at auction have all been set in the past three years, which is indicative of the continuing strength of the artist’s market. Similar to the present work, two of the artist’s top five results at auction are for still life arrangements of fruit of the still-life series.
Taking place in the end of November, The Hong Kong Watch Auction: XVII will feature a five-piece set of stainless steel wristwatches made by F.P. Journe, offered by the original owner who is an important Asian collector and appeared at auction for the first time.
One of the 38 sets made to mark the end of the 38mm Journe watch era, which lasted from 1999 to 2015, the set presented here includes a Tourbillon Souverain, a Chronomètre à Résonance, an Octa Automatique, an Octa Calendrier and a Chronomètre Souverain, all of which come in 38mm stainless steel cases with bronze coloured dials. And the exceptionally rare wooden presentation box produced in a limited edition to accompany the initial 38mm stainless steel series represents one of the finest distillations of luxury horological craftsmanship.
Watches from this collection are often separated at birth, rendering it difficulted to reunite as a complete set. With a substantial surge in demand for independent watchmaker timepieces today, F. P. Journe has taken the lead among independents in the secondary watch market. His work invites collectors to witness Journe’s genius that transforms technology into an artform.
### Location: Songwon Art Center, 75, Yunposun-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 03061, Korea Date & Time: 1-9 September 2023, 10am – 6pm
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