Exhibition Information

			The PIBI GALLERY presents the solo exhibition of Lee Dongi titled Lee Dongi, 1993 - 2014: Back to the Future from September 5th to November 2nd, 2019, making this the second solo show of the artist at PIBI following his first one, Lee Dongi: 2015 – 2018. If his previous exhibition was about presenting his direction of work of a specific time period centering on eclecticism and abstract paintings, this show is to be an in-depth re-examination of his works spanning the years from 1993 to 2014, exploring the attitudes and methods that make up his recent works. In addition to the exhibition, an artist book that takes us along the artist’s journey from the 90’s to the present is also scheduled to be published.

Exhibition Overview
Lee Dongi, 1993 - 2014: Back to the Future at the PIBI GALLERY is the artist’s 33rd solo exhibition. In Lee’s first solo exhibition at PIBI in 2018, Lee Dongi: 2015 – 2018, we shed light on the artist’s prominent characteristics of his recent works, revealed through his boundary-pushing attitude of eclecticism – demonstrated via by juxtaposing, lining up, and combining images collected through various mediums – and “all-over abstract paintings,” his new attempts in abstracts. 

With this exhibition Lee Dongi, 1993 – 2014, the focus is on his early works of the early 1990’s that led to the birth of Korean pop art, those that came about a period when the Korean art scene witnessed experimentation of art formats and dramatic changes to the medium environment. We will closely inspect Lee’s work from in and around 1993, all the way to 2014, and revisit the Korean contemporary art environment that brought about the creation of its version of pop art. Through this, we aim to define the role of Lee as the first generation Korean pop artist, and take the opportunity to take another look into his artistic realm, this time in the context of the current Korean contemporary art.

If Andy Warhol dismantled the boundaries of fine art and popular culture, and thus fostered the blooming of pop art in the US in the 1960’s, Asia saw its version in and around the 1990’s, entering the Korean, Chinese, and Japanese art scenes at slightly different times, each colored with the country’s respective idiosyncrasies. Korean pop art took off in the early 1990’s with Atomaus of Lee, while the so called “political pop” of China – an art movement also called “cynical realism” that came about in the after math of the Tiananmen Square crackdown – and the manga-based “J-Pop” (or called “neo-pop”) of Japan, led by Takashi Murakami, received attention from the world art scenes. Unlike the Chinese and Japanese counterparts that were centered on political tendencies and manga respectively, Korean pop art developed into a distinct form that was more focused on the “pop” format and the specific reality side of the art form.

In the latter part of the 1980’s, right before Lee’s debut as an artist, the Korean art world was dominated by abstract painting and the democratic movement based minjung art that was geared towards realism. But from the early 1990’s, young artists began producing work that was drastically different from before, creating a new current of art that came to be called Korean pop art. At first it came about by shifting from minjung and folk art to advertisement techniques being expressed through elements of pop. With the years, pop art noticeably burgeoned, forming a group of artists large enough to be called “the first generation of Korean pop art.” Notable pop artists like Kim Dongyu, who created pixelated and mosaic portraits of famous figures, Kwon Ohsang, whose works included both photography and sculpture and experimented with new mediums, and Choi Jeong Hwa, who is known for her kitsch-like work that crosses boundaries between art and non-art, each began to produce work that were pop art in form but aesthetically distinct in their own style.

Instead of borrowing or using pop culture as the subject of criticism like other artists, Lee set himself apart by defining his own style as that of an observer and consumer of Korean society and pop culture. Having grown up in the 70’s, the artist’s work is predominantly associated with his personal memories, which is the popular culture of the 70’s and 80’s that was largely consumed as cultural icons. Together with a socially rapid economic growth and the incoming popular culture from the US and Japan, as well as the spread of mass media, the Korean popular culture at the time came to exist in a heterogeneous state, one that was busy absorbing the media and culture pouring in from the outside before it was able to autonomously set its own course.

It was in this setting that Atomaus came into existence as the combined images of Mickey Mouse and Atom in 1993, the two symbols of popular culture that represented the US and Japan respectively. But Atomaus on its own is far from enough to encompass the works of Lee, who from his early days has been steadily creating work documenting reality in his own way. He brought direct and realistic events and scenes into his work, transforming and reconstituting them in his own style, as when he did when he enlarged comic frames, took a newspaper TV guide and reproduced it as if it was silkscreen printed (but in actuality was meticulously drawn by hand), and utilized images of infamous people and events, like that of singer Cho Yongpil and prison escapee Shin Changwon, magazine and advertisement still image cuts, a 100,000 Korean Won check, etc. Aspects as such played the role of not only exhibiting qualities of pop but the concreteness of Lee’s work, and going further, revealing the distinctiveness of Korea as well as differentiating Korean pop art.

Rather than simply bringing popular visual images into the realm of art in a non-critical manner, Lee’s work uses freshly defined methodology and strategies to address his contemplations regarding the effects and influences popular culture has on society, and the way to bring together the various points where art and visual culture cross paths. His work asks the people who live in the specific reality of today to think again about the relationship of pop culture and art, and the mutual effects they have on each other.

While Lee Dongi, 1993 - 2014: Back to the Future at the PIBI Gallery may have its focus placed on a certain point in the past, its aim is not the limited recollection of a specific era, but to serve as an opportunity to assess the beginnings of Korean pop art through the paintings of Lee, and revisit his work in the midst of the contemporary art of the current times.