SHIM MOON-SEUP: A CERTAIN SCENERY
Perrotin is pleased to present A Certain Scenery, a solo presentation of works on canvas and paper by Korean born artist Shim Moon-Seup (b. 1943).
February 28 – April 12, 2025
Looking towards the seascapes of Tongyeong, the coastal city where Shim grew up and has since returned to, the works on view continue the artist’s ever expansive and empathetic outlook on time, space, and nature––then, and now. In 2010, Shim began making an ongoing series of works on canvas entitled The Presentation. Known primarily as a sculptural artist in the decades prior, this material turn coincided with the artist’s relocation to childhood hometown Tongyeong in 2012, after a five-year sojourn in Paris (and prior to that, in the suburb of Seoul.)
The return to familiar bodies of water and a slower pace of life not only allowed the artist to reconnect with the seascapes which has nurtured his curiosity and sensibility since childhood, but also allowed for a vital reengagement with the core of Shim’s personal and artistic belief. What gravitates Shim towards the sea is its permutations between mundaneness and infinity. To Shim, the universal experience of the ocean as a landscape, and the emotional specificity of ocean-watching subjected to each viewer, do not present themselves as paradoxes; rather, they consubstantiate opportunities to “reveal to, share with, and invite others to engage in mutual resonance.”
A member of the seminal A.G. Group (Korean Avant-Garde Association, 1969-1975), Shim’s indelible contribution to the constellation of Korean experimental art began in the 1970s, when he made series of sculptures which spatially reveal modules of drawing, painting and performance. What unites the diverse forms in Shim’s near-five decade-long oeuvre are the works’ tendency to reduce, challenge or even negate the very grounds which sustained their structural and conceptual wholeness—often through elements of surprise.
There are times, however, when the light source underneath the measured densities reveal the illusionary depth of the pictorial plane, presenting the canvas as a screen flat as ever, once again. As Shim never fails to put so elegantly: “color makes its own voice, canvas plays its own role, and artist performs as an artist.