TKG+ at Frieze Seoul 2023｜Booth A17: Art Fair

TKG+ is pleased to announce its participation in the 2023 edition of Frieze Seoul with the works of three artists: Mit Jai Inn, Chen-Hung Chiu, and Joyce Ho. Using vastly different mediums and expressive techniques, the three artists explore diverse perspectives and a multitude of issues, while converging on one central theme: interpersonal connections.

The multilayered and texturally rich canvases, replete with visual and tactile sensations, constitute the creative expression of Thai artist Mit Jai Inn (b. 1960). Beneath the psychedelic hues, his manual labor — the blending, smearing, overlaying, and erasing of pigments — serves as a reflection of Mit’s upbringing during the Cold War era of the 1960s. The artist has long been engaged in politics and public discourse through his artistic pursuits. He rallied local artists, scholars, and activists in Thailand, and established artist collective “Chiang Mai Social Installation” in 1992. Since then Mit has become a pivotal figure on Thailand’s contemporary art scene. Mit’s layers of pigments serve both as a dissection of the Thai history, and a meditation on sociopolitical dimensions. The vibrant colors conjured through physical labor invite the viewer to ponder the interplay between the nation and one’s identity.

Taiwanese artist Chen-Hung Chiu (b. 1983) builds a creative narrative that interweaves personal experiences, family ties, artistic endeavors with a shifting natural environment. Inspired by the window view of plants, the “Daylighting” series limns the inconspicuous corners of the cityscape through nuanced intaglio on white cement, concrete, and putty, materials that are plain yet full of potential. A pas de deux between shadows of trees and plants, and fleeting glimpses of light attests to the past and the present, a fugitive moment cemented, a tableau engraved. Juxtaposing scenes from different times and places, the artist excavates history and memory before shaping them anew.

Taiwanese artist Joyce Ho (b. 1983), whose recent solo exhibition Counting closed in July at TKG+, creates a quiet corner in our booth with her installations. Through the juxtaposition of objects, and an actor mimicking the sound of a metronome, Momentum and Counting Underwater (both 2023) traces the trajectory of time in an unstable state of movement or a curious soundscape, as a parallel to the “Study of Dots” series (2019–2021). Emblematic of Ho’s creative approach, Animalized (2019) evokes a sense of agitation with the artist’s subtle but keen observation of the everyday. The smartphone that we can’t live without, round stickers commonly seen in a stationery store, the compulsive anxious rubbing of fingers, these almost imperceptible details become magnified in the eye of the artist.

From the layering of pigments, the minute details of the everyday, to the engraved or chisel marks, together these works offer a new vantage point for the viewer, allowing them to contemplate the familiar, the strange, and the unremarkable, drawing closer to the artistic manifestation rooted in the human condition.