CARLITO CARVALHOSA – KUKJE GALLERY – SEOUL

Exhibition Information
Artist: Carlito Carvalhosa (b.1961)
Exhibition Dates: October 12 – November 10, 2013
Exhibition Space: Kukje Gallery K3
Opening Hours: Monday – Saturday: 10am-6pm / Sunday, Holiday: 10am-5pm
Website: www.kukjegallery.com

About the Exhibition
Kukje Gallery is very pleased to present celebrated Brazilian artist Carlito Carvalhosa in a solo exhibition opening on October 12, 2013. This will be the artist’s first exhibition in Korea.

Known internationally for his ambitious sculptural installations and video, Carvalhosa’s work seeks to transform architectural space and subtly disrupt the viewers’ experience. In so doing he is able to reframe the everyday materiality of our urban landscapes and evoke a poetic feeling of both loss and tranquility. His materials are diverse, ranging from large-scale objects to ephemeral textiles, but what his practice consistently explores is his desire to reframe space and create moments of quiet beauty.

For his first exhibition at Kukje Gallery, Carvalhosa will exhibit a major sculptural installation titled Sala de Espera which means a “waiting room.” This unforgettable work consists of dozens of full-length tree trunks that dramatically cut through the gallery space intersecting its interior architecture. Originally used as posts for street lighting, these objects (ranging from 8-12 meters in length) simultaneously evoke an uncanny lightness and ominous feeling of dead weight. Indeed, it is the interplay between the psychology of a building and its human occupants that is one of Carvalhosa’s central themes. Drawing inspiration from both modernist design vocabularies and the rituals that transform space into a public sphere, the artist’s installations remain ambiguous and defy easy explanation. In addition, his choice of materials often plays with high and low, radically reinterpreting everyday materials – for example the light posts – into powerful signifiers of movement and emotion.

First installed in the in the Oscar Niemeyer designed Museum of Contemporary Art in São Paulo, Sala de Espera is a work that is intimately connected to its site and Kukje Gallery is thrilled to be able to install this groundbreaking work in its gallery K3.

About the Artist
Carlito Carvalhosa  was born in São Paulo, Brazil in 1961. He received a degree in architecture at the School of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of São Paulo, in 1984. Caravalhosa has participated in biennials around the world including the International Biennial of São Paulo, the Havana Biennial, the ‘Bienal Brasil Século XX’, the Mercosul Biennial and the ‘Côte à Côte Art Contemporain du Brésil’ at CAPC in Bordeaux, France. He has staged exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, the Imperial Palace, Rio de Janeiro; Gabinete de Arte Raquel Arnaud and at Galeria Millan amongst many others.
His installation Sala de Espera was chosen to be the inaugural exhibition in the new Annex at the Museum of Contemporary Art, São Paulo.