This year marks the 17th edition of Maison Guerlain’s ongoing collaboration with Art Basel Paris, showcasing Good Morning Korea, In the Land of the Morning Calm. This exhibit will highlight South Korean artists from diverse backgrounds, featuring renowned figures such as the late Nam June Paik, Lee Bul, and Anicka Yi, among others.
In addition to innovating in fragrances and beauty, Guerlain is committed to heritage and innovation principles. The brand is also dedicated to providing artists a platform to express their creativity, believing that art has a distinctive power to evoke and share memories—both personal and collective. Thus, it’s no surprise that South Korea has been chosen as this exhibition’s focal point. South Korea’s influence as a creative inspiration for the Western world embodies this philosophy, showcasing its rich artistic ideas that reflect the perspectives of a developing arts and culture nation.
South Korea Through Art
Curated by Hervé Mikaeloff, the exhibition Good Morning Korea, In the Land of the Morning Calm invites guests to explore memory through a multi-sensory experience, linking various pieces in an olfactory journey that subtly ties together visual and scent-based memories.
The featured artworks underscore the deep-rooted connections South Korean artists forge with nature, technology, and contemporary societal challenges, leading us through a timeline of South Korea’s cultural development and its vibrant, diverse heritage.
Nam June Paik
A pioneer in performance and technology-driven art, the late Nam June Paik was the first artist to present abstract images on television by manipulating magnets to alter visuals. He is also credited with pioneering the use of portable video cameras—now commonly known as “digicams.” He strongly believed that technology would transform the ways we create and share art, anticipating a future filled with camcorders, live-streaming, and social media. Nam skillfully blended Eastern and Western influences, turning our introspection into an endless technological exploration.
Lee Bul
“Perdu CXIII”, 2021, by Lee Bul. (CHARLES DUPRAT)
“Titan”, 2013, by Lee Bul. (CHARLES DUPRAT)
Lee Bul is celebrated for her striking, genre-defying pieces that investigate beauty, corruption, and decay. As a trailblazer in South Korea’s art landscape, she inspires younger artists with her early radical performances and immersive installations, continually pushing the limits of visual art. Major museums around the world, including the Hayward Gallery in London, The Martin Gropius-Bau in Berlin, and Palais de Tokyo in Paris, have presented her work in solo exhibitions.
The exhibition Good Morning Korea, In the Land of the Morning Calm will include Lee’s creations exploring concepts of perfection and the warped realities of modern identity, fusing feminine forms with mechanical elements to create a cyborg-like aesthetic.
Anicka Yi
Anicka Yi probes the underlying politics and implications of smell by crafting distinctive fragrances and integrating scent into her sculptures. Constantly challenging the limits of science, technology, and art, she seeks to formulate innovative, disconcerting, and futuristic experiences that defy traditional concepts of art. Her work has been exhibited at prestigious institutions such as Tate Modern in London and Singapore’s Art Science Museum.
Utilizing algorithms, Yi creates holographic paintings, intertwining patterns from her previous artworks (her “visual DNA”) with designs inspired by both the organic and technological, prompting inquiries into how art can evolve in this digital era.
Omyo Cho
“Barrel Eye”, 2022, by Omyo Cho.(OMYO CHO)
Starting her career as a novelist, Omyo Cho has developed her works to reflect her literary background—creating sculptures, installations, and VR videos that exist as nonlinear phenomena on alternative levels. Cho’s pieces have been presented in several group exhibitions, including the Surim Art Center, Ulsan Contemporary Art Festival, and Osan Museum of Art. Her artwork for this exhibition, “Barrel Eyes”, encourages the audience to conceive a future where memories manifest in real time, reshaping our perceptions of time and memory.
The Good Morning Korea, In the Land of the Morning Calm exhibition is scheduled to take place from 16 October to 12 November 200 at Maison Guerlain, located at 68 avenue des Champs-Elysées, 75008 Paris.
This article was initially published on Esquire Singapore.
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