"Friday Feature"
Minjung Kim, Jasper Johns, Wassily Kandinsky, Bruce Cohen
Leslie Sacks Contemporary
Bergamot Station 2525 Michigan Avenue, B6 Santa Monica, California 90404
T: (310) 264-0640 F: (310) 264-0740 e-mail:
1 > 30 September, 2017
Minjung Kim, Red Mountain, 2014, watercolor on Mulberry Hanji, 15 x 56 inches
Minjung Kim paints the endless expanse of light-flooded mountain landscapes in flowing, undulating movements. She does so with a consciousness of seventeenth and eighteenth-century Japanese ink paintings. Carried out on rice paper [or Mulberry Hanji], the monochrome paintings are characterized by countless gradations staggered into the depths of space. The black in the foreground surges into an ash grey. The ash grey lightens, vanishes. Regardless of whether black or red ink has been employed, the viewer inhales the shimmering distance. What is exceptional about these sheets is that each of them discovers its own visual focus. Shaped by the emotionality of the artistic action, the mountainous landscape is different in every work. We look over the artist's shoulder, follow her gaze as it roams into the distance, the gentle brushwork--there it is, that constancy! That unchanged, intoxicating bliss in the perception of something that fills us with yearning.
-Jean-Christophe Ammann, Minjung Kim: The Light, The Shade, The Depth Luxembourg & Dayan, London, 2015, page 7
View additional works by Minjung Kim-Jean-Christophe Ammann, Minjung Kim: The Light, The Shade, The Depth Luxembourg & Dayan, London, 2015, page 7
Minjung Kim
Jasper Johns, Untitled, 2012, Intaglio, 21 x 16 inches, edition of 30, signed and numbered
Notwithstanding the breakthrough for Johns of dropping his reserve and placing himself within his imagery, there is a lingering reticence in his depicting himself as a shadow--and a semitransparent one at that--and the degree to which such a representation is in fact another decoy. That is, a painted shadow is a mere variation, imitation, or replication of a given individual. Moreover, it is only reported that the shadow was made from Johns' body; while this certainly may be so, no facial features are present to provide conclusive, visual proof. Like a character in a mystery (a Johnsian spy?), a shadow may cause observers to respond uncomfortably or to seek desperately for an identity. The shadow could be viewed as a double, too--a conceit that allows the artist to maintain his privacy and the secrecy of his intensions, even as he depicts a version of himself and his feelings.
-Mark Rosenthal, Jasper Johns: Work Since 1974, "The Seasons"
Philadelphia Museum of Art,1988, Thames and Hudson, Inc., London, page 94
View additional works by Jasper Johns-Mark Rosenthal, Jasper Johns: Work Since 1974, "The Seasons"
Philadelphia Museum of Art,1988, Thames and Hudson, Inc., London, page 94
Jasper Johns
