Seoul-based artist Kim Jongku featured at CU-Boulder, Denver Art Museum

The University of Colorado Boulder Department of Art and Art History presents Seoul-based artist Kim Jongku in several free public events during his two-week residency, which began Monday and continues through Feb. 14.

Jongku works in sculpture, video, painting and photography.

At 6:15 p.m. Feb. 11 in the Visual Arts Complex (VAC), the visiting artist lecture series and the University Libraries are cosponsoring “The Materiality of Transmutation: What Persists and What Projects,” an exhibition, performance, lecture and panel discussion. Jongku will demonstrate and discuss how he uses steel ground into a black powder to write calligraphic inscriptions on canvas or the floor, as if the iron powder were Chinese ink. When the art is created on a floor, Jongku uses closed-circuit cameras to project his constructed vista onto a screen to evoke traditional Korean ink-and-brush painting.

Attendees may view Jongkuʼs new artwork created on site in the Visual Arts Complex Lobby starting at 6:15 p.m. Feb. 11, followed by a performance art piece at 6:40 p.m. The artist lecture is scheduled at 7 p.m. in the VAC Auditorium, 1B20, followed by a panel discussion at 7:30 p.m.

The panel includes William Morrow, the Polly and Mark Addison Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Denver Art Museum; he will explore Jongku's unique relationship with steel and discuss the artist’s work in the context of historical and current movements in contemporary art.

Alexander Watkins, assistant professor and art and architecture librarian at CU-Boulder, will discuss whether and how performance art should be preserved for future researchers. Many artists believe that by their nature their performances are ephemeral, had-to-be-there moments that cannot be captured in documentation. Attempts to preserve performance art necessarily transform into other media: video, photography, installation; problematically these surrogates can become replacements for the original work.

Also, from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. Feb. 13 at the Denver Art Museum’s Hamilton Building, lower level, Jongku will speak on “The Iron Powder: The Metamorphosis of Steel in Video Installations and Other Artworks.” This Curator's Circle Lecture is free; reservations are required: 720-913-0040 or lnorcross@denverartmuseum.org.

On Feb. 14 in the Andrew J. Macky Gallery in the foyer of the Macky Auditorium Concert Hall, a reception from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. sponsored by BMoCA at Macky will open “Kim Jongku: Steel Powder Painting and Landscape.” The exhibition of works created during the artist’s campus residency will be on display through March 30. This event also is free and open to the public.

BMoCA at Macky is a series of exhibitions curated by Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCA) and presented in the Macky Gallery in the foyer of the Macky Auditorium at CU-Boulder.

This event is supported by grants from the University of Colorado President¹s Fund for the Humanities and the CU-Boulder Center for Asian Studies and co-sponsored by the CU-Boulder Department of Art + Art History and University Libraries.

For more information please call Valerie Albicker at 303-492-2539.