Poom. Power of Gentleness

The character “品” (pronounced:poom) expressing the figure of three people with three mouths refers to the gathering of many people. As there are always objects where people are, the word 物品 (mulpum, goods) was derived, and the meaning was expanded to 品位 (pumui, class), 品格 (pumgyuk, dignity), 品性 (pumseong, character), and so on depending on the different qualities and natures of goods.

This exhibition “品 (pronounced:poom): Power of Gentleness ” presents works of crafts that started as tools from primeval humanity and have turned into familiar and specific art of living in our lives by sharing the experience of objects. The history of traces and time lived by people from antiquity dwells in crafts. In the history of crafts, there is value put on the accumulated skills learned from judgments of emotions and senses, earned from the long time of seeing and feeling objects and realizing the logic within.

As people differ in personality, objects differ in class. As there are people with good personalities, there is dignity in objects. “品” shows the spectrum of various values in all phenomena in the journey of civilization as learned by human after opening and living in the world. This recognition of objects and the expression of knowing can exhibit power when infused into our lives. This exhibition was prepared with the hope that this power would indeed be the power of gentleness that can move the world in valuable ways.
 

Participating artists
Part1: The Psychological Value of Object
Jungsil Hong, Yongjin Chung, Seol Kim, Yong Joo Kim, Jihoon Ha, Jungok Kim,
Geejo Lee, Minjeong Kim
 
Part 2: The Imagination of Object
Yeonsoon Chang, Haeja Han, Seunghee Kim, Hyegyung Kim, Heeseung Koh,
Healim Shin, Junghoo Kim, Shinlyoung Kim, Sooyeon Kim, Jina Sim, Minyoung Oh,
 
Part 3: The Virtue of Handcraft
Sunkab Kim, Seonggeun Jeon, Yongwoon Kim, Ikpyeong Eom, Jaesu Um, Changhee Lee, Taeja Kim, Youngchang Kim, Yongsook Noh, Yoonsun Kim,
 
Part 4: The Spiritual Succession of Object
Jinsoon Woo, Sungho Cho, Kwangyoon Park, Hyerim Kang, Jiman Choi, Sangman Kim, Sangwoo Jeon, Kyungok Yoo

Special Talk: June 2, 2016 at 2pm by Rosalie Kim (Curator of Korean Craft and Design at the Victoria Albert Museum in London)