Writings

Texts

Review: Art Busan 2025, An art fair aspiring to become a platform — What was gained, and what was left behind?

Art Busan 2025 concluded its four-day run on May 11 at BEXCO in Haeundae, Busan. Now in its 14th edition, the fair brought together 109 galleries from 17 countries in an effort to reinforce Busan’s position as a hub of contemporary art in East Asia. However, the outcome reflected more of the current art market realities than a major shift.

2025.05.13

Texts

Gwon Osang x G-Dragon: Sculpting the “Übermensch”

What does it mean to exist beyond the confines of identity? Gwon Osang, a pioneering figure in contemporary sculpture, dissects the visual lexicon of pop culture through his signature ‘photo-sculpture’ technique, fusing photography and three-dimensional form to interrogate notions of representation.

2025.03.04

Texts

Artist Gwon Osang Redefines Sculpture Through Photography

Gwon Osang (b. 1974), known for his so-called "photo-sculptures," has continuously questioned the identity of sculpture while exploring new structural forms.

2024.12.17

Criticisms

Unbound Assemblage: The Sculptural “-ic” Movements of Kwon Osang and Haneyl Choi

The constraints of the system called the “contemporary,” which constantly demands renewal, are also applied to art, driving repeated transformations through frameworks such as expansion, deconstruction, recontextualization

2022.08.23

Criticisms

Two Diverging and Converging Paths of Sculpture History : Kwon Osang, Haneyl Choi, 《The Other Self》

To put it boldly, everything is “sculpture.” If sculpture is defined as a mass possessing form and materiality within three-dimensional space, then not only various artistic genres—such as painting, photography,

2022.08.23

Texts

Gwon Osang’s Sculpture That Transcends Dimensions

Artist Gwon Osang’s Untitled GD will be on view at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London from September 24, 2022. The piece depicts G-Dragon, a member of the South Korean idol group Big Bang, as Saint Michael the Archangel, confronting the devil.

2022.08.04

More Writings

Essays

Return of the Sculpture

It's up to the audience how to read Gwon Osang's works. It's because his works are neutral in meaning and evaluation. He just devotes himself to his works with a serious attitude. And the result becomes a statement about human's visual perception,

2008

Criticisms

A new method of playing with illusion and reality – Gwon Osang

On February 17, 2004, at the opening of the 《Real Reality》 show at Kukje Gallery, the artist Gwon Osang seemed to have put everything that was of the 90s behind him, and in doing so, marked a small but significant victory. Through 《Real Reality》, Gwon became the first artist to come knocking on the doors of commercial success, and move beyond the obscure fray of the present art scene, largely made up of “second-generation baby boomer” artists and established by the tendencies of the 1990s. (“Second-generation baby boomers” refers to those born in Korea in the early-and mid-1970s. The birth rate statistics chart for post-war Korea resembles a camel with two humps. The first generation of baby boomers was born in the mid-and late-1960s, and the talkative and problematic 386 generation constitutes its core group.[1] While the population momentarily paused in 1971, the figures exploded again in the mid-1970s. Those born during that time are the second-generation baby boomers, known as the “Seo Taiji” [2]generation, which led the way to a mass consumer culture.) 《Real Reality》 represented a very significant event, as the first show within the domestic commercial gallery system that featured young Korean artists in their early 30s as the exhibition headliners. (In form, 《Real Reality》 was a four-person show that included Bae Bien-U (b.1950), Gwon Osang (b.1974), Lee Yoon-jean (b.1972) and Lee Joong-keun; in actuality, it was more like a three-person show of Gwon, Lee Yoon-jean and Lee Joong-keun.) When editions of the works in the show sold in large numbers following the opening, this served as proof that a domestic market able to handle young Korean artists really did exist. Did this mean that a new “niche market” had been cultivated? Sure enough, a little later on in February 2005, Gwon captured the public eye when he was chosen by Ci Kim (Kim Chang-il), head of Arario Gallery, to be a represented by Arario, and the artist soon entered a one-year hiatus. (As of 2006, Arario Gallery represents a total of 8 Korean artists: Gwon Osang, Koo Dong-hee, Lee Hyungkoo, Chung Sue-jin, Baek Hyun-jin, Park Sejin, Lee Dong-wook, and Jeon Joon-ho; and seven major Chinese artists: Wang Guanyi, Yue Minjun, Zhang Xiaogang, Liu Jianhua, Sui Jianguo, Fang Lijun, and Zeng Hao.)

2006.12.20

Interview

2006 Gwon Osang's Interview for Solo Show at Arario Gallery

When we think of the artist Gwon Osang we think of sculpture that is closely related to photography. In your work ‘Deodorant Type’, you used photographs to create sculptures, and in ‘The Flat’ you cut out pictures from magazines to make sculptures and captured them by camera. But this time you sculpted a car using a conventional material, namely bronze, and titled it ‘The Sculpture’. I'm curious why you chose a super car as your object?

2006