Aram Tanis: Ji Hyun Song, 2002-2004, Photography, Series

Aram Tanis: Ji Hyun Song, 2002-2004, Photography, Series

On occasion of Korea being the guest country of the Frankfurt Book Fair 2005, the Frankfurter Kunstverein presents the exhibition ‘Parallel Life‘, showing works from korean and international artists. On the basis of the division between the north and the south of Korea, the artists try to explore it’s meanings beyond geografical and historical levels.

South Korea has in the space of a few decades gone through a development that for other countries takes centuries. The country is technologically highly developed, the urban architecture resembles Western cities, but still the unstoppable will to progress exists side by side with a distinctive awareness of tradition. In this way South Korea embodies essential aspects of both economical and cultural globalisation, without denying its own roots.
North Korea, on the other hand, is one of the few still existing communist countries, which hermetically cuts itself off from the rest of the world and defends its ideology against all conflicts and influences from the outside. The border between the two countries has long since acquired a symbolic aspect that goes beyond its geographical meaning. It embodies the loss of home as well as the discrepancies at different levels between the two sides of the border.

Participating artists:
Ahn Kyu Chul, Sulki & Min Choi, Sunah Choi, Jay Chung & Q Takeki Maeda, COMPANY (Aamu Song, Johan Olin), Jason Dodge, Matias Faldbakken, Peter Friedl, Rainer Ganahl, Nesrine Khodr, Beom Kim, Minouk Lim, Pol Malo, June Bum Park, Park Chan-Kyong, Mai-Thu Perret, Tobias Rehberger , Seo Jin Soo, Bruno Serralongue, Sean Snyder, Simon Starling, Aram Tanis

Curators:Sung Won Kim, Vanessa Müller, Nicolaus Schafhausen

A catalogue will be available