Zona Maco Mexico Arte Contemporaneo, the art fair of Mexico, celebrates its tenth edition this year, and has become the most important contemporary art window into Latin America. MSG will be exhibiting the work of Korean ceramic artist Lee Kang Hyo at the fair in booth ZMD13 from April 10-14 in Mexico City.
Lee Kang Hyo // Puncheong Jar (The Sky) // 2012
Since its inception in 2009, the Mindy Solomon Gallery has emphasized a strong programmatic focus on Korean artwork, particularly ceramics. Artist Lee Kang Hyo, whom the Gallery will feature at Zona Maco, epitomizes the elegance, simplicity, and historic significance that is emblematic of Korean Buncheong ceramics. Kang Hyo’s masterful throwing skills translate to work that is timeless, solid design. Combining basic forms, such as the moon jar, platter, water jar, and large-scale Onggi pot with expressive pure liquid white slip, the energy conveyed in his works is rich as well as minimal. Creating that response is masterful—Kang Hyo’s translation of touch through form pulls the viewer closer to the work. Placement of these objects in a formal setting changes the energy and harmony of a space. Equally at home in a minimal, contemporary setting or a formal room resplendent with Asian décor, Kang Hyo’s ceramics inform and enhance.
Lee Kang Hyo // Puncheong Flat Squared Jar (Mountain Water)
Presenting contemporary art of significant collectability and value, in an exhibition program focused on contemporary design, is a new professional direction for Mindy Solomon Gallery. Innately, collectors purchase art as a means of transforming their environment—whether it be for purely cerebral reasons or spatial adaptation, the latter representing the inherent need to collect without prior knowledge of where and how to place the work. Surface and spatial design with fine art not only create visual movement, but a lasting opportunity to build artistic legacy through design. Ultimately, how one chooses to collect is simply a pathway to a more stimulating life experience. It is the intention of the Mindy Solomon Gallery to be a guiding force in that journey.
About the Artist
Lee Kang Hyo was born in Inch’on in 1961, and now lives and works in North Ch’ungch’ong Province, South Korea. He graduated with a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Department of Ceramics at Hongik University in 1983, followed by a three-year apprenticeship in a workshop in South Kyongsang Province learning to produce Onggi ware. Onggi containers, which can attain the height of an adult person, are built from long coils of clay and then shaped on a potter’s wheel. They are traditionally used for the storage of soy sauce and kimch’i, the pickled vegetables indispensable to any Korean meal.
Lee Kang Hyo’s ceramics reflect the punch’ong tradition of gray stoneware decorated with white slip. The subtle color variations range from milky white to a spectrum of grays and beiges, to pink and rusty red, and to an earthy dark brown. Kang Hyo achieves such subtlety by firing the works in a kiln he built himself in 1992 in the customary manner, using lumps of clay rather than bricks.
EXHIBITION INFORMATION:
Mindy Solomon Gallery presents the work of Lee Kang Hyo April 10-14, 2013 at Zona Maco, Mexico City, in booth ZMD13. Show hours are Wednesday from 4pm-9pm; Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 12 noon-9pm; and Sunday from 12 noon-8pm. The fair takes place at Av. Conscripto 311, Col. Lomas de Sotelo, Del. Miguel Hidalgo, CP 11200, Mexico City. For more information, please contact the gallery at info@mindysolomon.com or 727-502-0852, visit www.mindysolomon.com, or visit the Zona Maco website.
And, be sure not to miss Mindy in New York City this January 24-27 at 
“The artist constructs a new symbol with his brush. This symbol is not a recognizable form of anything which is already finished, already made, already existing in the world—it is a symbol of a new world, which is being built upon and which exists by way of people.”
