This year in 2023, in celebration of its 20th anniversary, the Coreana Museum of Art is hosting an exhibition entitled TIME/MATERIAL: Performing Museology to present the works of globally renowned contemporary artist Meekyoung Shin. Since the inauguration of space*c in 2003, based on the founding motto of “reviewing the old and learning the new,” the Coreana Cosmetics Museum has been offering a wide range of domestic and overseas exhibitions mobilizing studies on the history and legacy of traditional Korean cosmetic culture and the Coreana Museum of Art has built up its unique presence through various special exhibitions and programs on topics including the ‘body,’ ‘women,’ and ‘beauty’ in the contemporary art scene.

This exhibition, which draws on space*c’s unique feature that two different museums coexist in a building, cultivates a new dimension by intervening the East and West, the Old and New across the binaries between contemporary and antique art. This trajectory, in turn, is closely tied to the artist’s attempt to create something new through the translation of classical canons. The keywords in the exhibition title—time and material—constitute key concepts that pierce through Shin’s works and the museum; in the exhibition, the museum space serves as a multi-layered structure that is a substantive actuality rather than a mere background for the relics and artworks, wherein its layered structure multi-dimensional time and materials coexist.

Starting with her Translation Series, inspired by the antient Greek sculptures at the British Museum in 1996, Shin has been using soap to represent classical Western sculptures or Asian ceramics. The process through which a certain object is museologically rendered a relic, its temporality and function held in suspension, effectively aligns with Shin’s works as the soap sheds its primary use to acquire artistic authority and is subsequently put on display. As a readily dissolvable material that stands vulnerable to abrasion, soap is an optimal substance for capturing Shin’s vision of temporality.   

The exhibition comprehensively features Shin’s oeuvre, from her early sculptures to the temporal traces of silver and bronze-plated soap ceramics in the Petrified Time Series (2018), the translations of transparent glass ceramics in the Ghost Series (2007~2013), and the Painting Series (2014~)’s contrast between antique frames and soap. The exhibition also presents large soap painting sculptures reminiscent of Modernist abstract paintings, and her latest work in the Romantic Sculpture Series(2023), inspired by the collections of the Coreana Museum of Art.

In addition, the exhibition introduces the new version of Weathering Project and Toilet Project, in which Shin uses resin and bronze to recast the traces of time engrained in soap through rain, wind, and human touch. By securing new visual effects that cannot be derived from the raw materials and thereby inviting the viewers to retrace the vestiges of time, Shin continues her reflection on temporality and materiality on yet another level.   

We hope that our visitors would discover the narratives that the museum and the artist collaboratively produce, along with their clashes, new sensitivities, and values at the exhibition TIME/MATERIAL: Performing Museology.

Meekyoung Shin(b.1967) is active in the contemporary art scene in both Korea and the U.K. Employing soap as a material, the artist recreates various cultural artifacts, ranging from Ancient Greek and Roman statues to vases and Buddha statues from Asia. Removed from their specific cultural background and recontextualized into artworks, these 'translated' works suggest, as its primary attribute, the incompleteness of translation and representation, connecting to the characteristics of soap which gets 'worn down'. Majoring in sculpture in university, Meekyoung Shin had numerous solo exhibitions both nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at Arko Museum, Space K in Korea, MMCA, Seoul National University Museum, Sungkok Art Museum, Hakgojae Gallery in Shanghai, China, Haunch of Venison, London, Belton House, The National Centre for Craft, Design, and Bristol Museum, and in international art exhibitions such as Nanjing Triennale in 2008, Venice Biennale Special Exhibition in 2011, as well as multiple art fairs, including Art Basel in 2008, Shin was nominated for the Korean Artist Prize in 2013 by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, and received the Prudential Eye Award for 'Best Emerging Artist in Sculpture' in Singapore, in 2015.

■ Artist's Interview: Meekyoung Shin

■ Title TIME/MATERIAL: Performing Museology

■ Dates  March 2 to June 10, 2023

■ Venue  Coreana Museum of Art & Coreana Cosmetics Museum

■ Participating Artist  Meekyoung Shin

■ Hours  Tue.-Fri. 11AM to  6PM, Sat.  12PM - 6PM / Closed on every Sunday, Monday

■ Admission  General 6,000won, Students 5,000won, 7 and under/ Seniors/ visitors with Disabilities - Free 

■ Organized by  Coreana Museum of Art

■ Cooperated with  Coreana Cosmetics Museum

■ Supported by Coreana Cosmetics Co., Ltd. Seoul Metropolitan Goverment, Seoul Foundation of Arts and Culture

■ Contact  +82-2-547-9177 / 1:1 Inquires

Installation View, space*c, 2023

[1F Lobby]

[Courtyard]

[c-gallery]

[B1 Corridor]

[c-cube]

[Coreana Cosmetics Museum 5F]

[Coreana Cosmetics Museum 6F]

[Toilet]