The Cumulative Effect: A group show featuring Andrew Kreps, Bortolami, and Tina Kim Gallery curated by John Yau
Andrew Kreps, Bortolami, and Tina Kim Gallery are pleased to present The Cumulative Effect, a group show at Songwon Art Center in honor of the inaugural Frieze Seoul. The Cumulative Effect is curated by John Yau and features artists such as Cheyney Thompson, Clare Rojas, Daniel Buren, Davide Balliano, Ghada Amer, He Xiangyu, Mary Obering, Minouk Lim, Oliver Lee Jackson, Pacita Abad, Rebecca Morris, and Suki Seokyeong Kang.
Working across a wide range of materials and processes, the artists in The Cumulative Effect use pencil, watercolor, oil paint, gold leaf, spray paint, fabric, silkscreen, and collage to engage with subject matter that intersects with biography, culture, society, identity, anxiety, desire, and ruminations about time and history. There are no substitutes for Ghada Amer’s use of embroidery and gel, Mary Obering’s use of egg tempera and gold leaf, Pacita Abad’s stitching on padded canvas, or Minouk Lim’s use of wooden canes and cuttlefish bones. These multimedia artists are interested in the interface between personal and local history, the different narratives and anti-narratives of art, and the effects of being an individual under constant threat, opening up the possibilities of art for themselves and for the viewer.
The title of the exhibition, The Cumulative Effect, comes from an essay that American artist Rebecca Morris wrote (Artforum, March 1, 2013) on the paintings of the Belgian painter Raoul De Keyser (1930-2012), shortly after he died in Deinze. “Here was a career’s worth of art at play,” Morris wrote, “a way of composing and building an image that was personal yet also utterly open and generous.” The artists in The Cumulative Effect challenge many of the assumptions that are integral to old-world thinking and late 20 th century theories about the avant-garde and the death of the author.
Their work is geometric, as in work by Balliano, Buren, Obering, Morris, and Rojas; they use embroidery, as in the work of Abad and Amer; and they make sculptures out of industrial and found materials, as well as things gathered from nature, like Kang and Lim. None of them, however, belongs to any school or stylistic tendency, nor does the work look like anyone else’s. How the particulars of their visual language functions in their work is, to cite Morris, “personal” and “generous,” rather than formal and art historically correct.
ABOUT JOHN YAU
John Yau is a poet, fiction writer, art critic, publisher, and curator. Known for his attentiveness to visual culture and linguistic surface, he has published widely. His most recent book of poems is Genghis Chan on Drums (Omnidawn, 2021). Recent monographs include Liu Xiaodong (Lund Humphries, 2021), Thomas Nozkowski (Lund Humphries, 2017) and Catherine Murphy (Rizzoli, 2016). In 1999, he founded Black Square Editions, a small press devoted to poetry, fiction, translation, and criticism. His reviews appear regularly in the online journal Hyperallergic. In 2020, he received the Rabkin Prize for his art criticism. Yau recently finished a monograph on Joe Brainard, which Rizzoli will publish in the fall of 2022. His next project is a monograph on John Pai for Rizzoli.
ABOUT ANDREW KREPS GALLERY
Andrew Kreps Gallery was founded in New York in 1996. After over 20 years of operation in Chelsea, the gallery relocated to 22 Cortlandt Alley in Tribeca in 2019. Spanning 10,000 square feet across two levels, the gallery currently mounts more than ten exhibitions by international artists each year. Since 2019, the gallery has additionally presented exhibitions at 55 Walker, an exhibition space co-operated with Bortolami and kaufmann repetto. In 2022, the gallery once again expanded its programming to 394 Broadway, a storefront space that connects Broadway to Cortlandt Alley, and presents seven additional exhibitions each year. Representing over 30 artists and estates, recent additions to the gallery's program include Bendt Eyckermans, Oliver Lee Jackson, and the work of Bertina Lopes.
ABOUT BORTOLAMI GALLERY
Bortolami Gallery opened in Chelsea in September 2005 and relocated to Tribeca in 2017, opening the new gallery with an inaugural exhibition by Daniel Buren. The gallery represents 26 international artists from the Americas, Europe, and Asia. In 2019, Bortolami began collaborating with Andrew Kreps and kaufmann repetto on 55 Walker, a two-story space in which the three galleries rotate and co-produce exhibitions. In 2020, Bortolami expanded to a second-floor space at 39 Walker to host additional projects. In the last five years, the gallery has added several artists to the roster, including Renée Green, Naotaka Hiro, Madeline Hollander, Ella Kruglyanskaya, Rebecca Morris, Mary Obering, Virginia Overton, Marina Rheingantz, Aki Sasamoto, Lesley Vance, and the estate of Deborah Remington. Additionally, Bortolami’s unique, experimental programming initiative, Artist/City, continues to bring evolving long-term exhibitions to cities across the United States. Beginning in 2015 with Daniel Buren/Miami, the gallery has produced the following projects: Eric Wesley/St.Louis, Tom Burr/New Haven, Jutta Koether/Philadelphia, Barbara Kasten/Chicago, Paul Pfeiffer/Washington D.C., Ann Veronica Janssens/Baltimore, and Cecily Brown/Buffalo.
ABOUT TINA KIM GALLERY
Founded in New York in 2001 by Tina Kim and located in Chelsea, Tina Kim Gallery is celebrated for its unique programming that emphasizes international contemporary artists, historical overviews, and independently curated shows. With the gallery’s strong focus on Asian contemporary artists, Tina Kim has become a leading figure in introducing the Korean Dansaekhwa art movement to the American audience. Furthermore, she has created a platform for emerging and renowned artists such as Lee Seung Jio, Pacita Abad, Kim Tschang-Yeul, Tania Pérez Córdova, Minouk Lim, Davide Balliano, and Suki Seokyeong Kang. Through its programming, the gallery works closely with internationally renowned curators for special exhibitions and produces scholarly art publications.
PUBLIC DAYS
August 30–September 15, 2022
Gallery hour 11AM - 6PM,
Closed on Monday
OPENING RECEPTION
Tuesday, August 30, 2022 | 5 — 7 PM
VENUE
SONGWON ART CENTER
75 Yunposun-gil, Hwa-dong,
Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea
