"4482" Utopia/ Dystopia: A Palace with Contemporary Views

Now in its third year, 4482 [SASAPARI] is the annual showcase for Korean contemporary artists living and working in London. In 2010, subtitled Utopia/ Dystopia: A Palace with Contemporary Views, it presents the latest work from 53 artists in the cavernous Bargehouse building on the South Bank.

In the art world’s continual search for the new, the past decade has seen major shows and festivals for Chinese, Indian, Japanese and other Asian contemporary art - but the large number of Korean artists living and working in London have yet to be institutionalized. However, for those who regularly visit the graduate shows of London’s leading art colleges (or indeed, teach there) there is a growing recognition that the most surprising and exciting work often has a Korean name attributed to it. Thankfully, many of these emerging artists have stayed to continue their art practice in London and are represented in 4482 [SASAPARI]. With such an eclectic range, 4482 [SASAPARI] is the largest ever exhibition of Korean contemporary artists in the UK.

The title of the showcase 4482, pronounced Sa Sa Pa Ri as in Korean fashion, is derived from the combination of the international dialing codes, 44 for UK and 82 for Korea. These four digits have not only come to represent the cross-cultural dialogue in which the artists are inevitably engaged, but furthermore they embody an imagined community. During the course of the curatorial process in the realisiation of this year’s show, each artist has been given the opportunity to ponder their view of the world where they live in and/or belong to. They investigate dimensions of utopian-dystopian thinking in various spheres of contemporary life. Thus 4482 [SASAPARI] is another sphere where artists invite the viewer to contemplate various signs of political, social, technological, ecological, and gender utopianism which are intermingled with dystopian and apocalyptic imagery as a counterbalance to utopian enthusiasm.

Not every artist strictly speaks of a distinctive two-fold world view. Dystopian maps have been superimposed over utopia, but also as utopian constructions where dystopian realities have been absorbed, negated and transcended in order to generate a new utopian synthesis. Yet it would be useful to remind oneself prior to stepping into 4482 [SASAPARI] to see what unfolds before the audience this year, that the word Utopia was coined with an almost certainly intended pun by Thomas More in 1516: the Greek pun on ‘ou-topos’ meaning no place and ‘eu-topos’ meaning good place.

Gyeong-Yoon An, Je Baak, Jinhee Bae, Chan-Hyo Bae, Anna Choi, Mi-Young Choi, Joo-Hee Chun, Jae Yeon Chung, U Jae Chung, Jung-Ouk Hong, Seungpyo Hong, Jeong Mun Hur, Shan Hur, JooHee Hwang, Sein Hwang, Honey Im, Da kyoung Jeong, Yun Kyung Jeong, SoYoung Jung, Yoonjin Jung, Yeonhyung Kang, Ayoung Kim, Chinwook Kim, Dong Yoon Kim, Gemini Kim, Jeong Eun Kim, Luca sang-jun Kim, Young Mi Kim, Hyeyoung Ku, Dae Hun Kwon, Soon-Hak Kwon, Jin Han Lee, Sue Jin Lee, Sunju Lee, Yeon Lee, Soonnam Lim, Changhwan Park, Hye-Joung Park, Hyemin Park, Hyungji Park, Hyungjin Park, Jihye Park, Jinhee Park, Yeojoo Park, Daihyun Ryu, Jung Eun Ryu, Amy hye jung Shin, Gunwoo Shin, Kiwoun Shin, Nicky Seok H. Won, Seung Hyun Woo, Jungu Yoon, Sang-Yoon Yoon