CARLA ACCARDI YEESOOKYUNG : FRAGMENTS OF FORM

CARLA ACCARDI

YEESOOKYUNG

FRAGMENTS OF FORM

Massimo De Carlo gallery is pleased to present Fragments of Form, two solo presentations by Italian artist Carla Accardi alongside Korean artist Yeesookyung.

Hailing from the post-war avant garde art movement in Italy, Accardi’s work has often been described as calligraphic abstraction, although the artist’s career spans decades of experimentation not only with the abstraction on the painted medium, but also groundbreaking inquiry of the physicality of materials. Yeesookyung, on the other hand, is distinguished by a unique interdisciplinary approach and the ability to relate to different and extremely varied mediums, indeed she came to prominence with her Translated Vase series.

Fragments of Form pinpoints a mutual expression of femininity within each artist’s work; presenting them in two solo presentations, in which the artworks engage with one another in a fluid and dynamic dialogue. Translated Vases offers a delightful twist on post-colonialism by presenting an interpretation of the past through contemporary lens, yet a deeply personal reflection of human fragility through biomorphic forms. Whereas the presentation of Carla Accardi’s work mirrors the idiosyncratic touch and inner world of the artist; calling into question the very fundamentals of painting that was crucial to the artist’s practice.

Presenting works from 1964 – 2012, Fragments of Form provides a valuable overview and insight of Carla Accardi’s career. Throughout decades, Accardi constructed a language that could reconcile opposing positions, going beyond figuration but also breaking free from the rigors of geometry. At once gesturally figurative, the works speak of an inner spirituality at once removed and responsive from the artist’s cultural and contextual background.

Moving onto Yeesookyung’s Translated Vase series, the origin of the project comes from a Korean master potter’s disposed vases. Upon witnessing the potter destroy vases deemed imperfect, Yeesookyung retrieved the broken shards and recuperated the fragments with into bulbous and personal forms. Ceramic shards are seamed together with epoxy, and delicately covered with 24-carat gold leaf, creating simultaneously voluptuous yet fragile forms. As the artist explains, “to me, a piece of broken ceramic finds another piece, and they come to rely on one another. The usage of gold in the cracks between them is related to Korean language, for which the pronunciation of the word ‘gold’ and ‘crack’ sounds same as ‘Geum’. Among the exhibited pieces there are four rare examples of the new production in which the artist uses the shards of Moonjar vase, which is characterized by a milky white colour. The artist uses shards vases that modern porcelain masters have imitated from the original of the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910).

Yeesookyung’s salvaged pieces fuse together in an intriguing formation, creating a new genre of porcelain sculpture. The gold lined seams of where the porcelain shards join echo a sentiment in which the hierarchy between the original and the translation, the original and the fake, success and failure are questioned. Yeesookyung embeds the collective identity of Korean history and culture in each crevice of every porcelain fragment, re-interpreting the final piece for her audience. In doing so, the artist highlights the idiosyncrasies of each language, and amplifying the imperfection of translation through distorting secondary sources and references.

Both artists express a vulnerability that is inherent on the canvas and also through the cracks of the porcelain sculptures, albeit heralding very diverse styles. The maturity of Accardi’s gestural language is demonstrated in the presentation of the artist’s work; whereas in Yeesookyung’s sculptural forms tradition is at once celebrated and deconstructed. When paired together, the symbiosis and dialogue of both artists is evident in Fragments of Form, emphasizing the fragility of the human psyche.