Friedman Benda is proud to present a solo-installation by Korean designer and master craftsman, Byung Hoon Choi at DesignMiami/Basel, on view June 15th – 21nd, 2015.
The Basel exhibition marks the introduction of Choi’s monumental work in Europe. It also marks Friedman Benda’s debut appearance at the fair.
Choi’s presentation offers an experience of entering a landscape or place for meditation, where visitors pause and take a moment to engage and reflect, recalling that of a Zen garden. Entering Choi’s environment creates a layered experience, transcending the boundaries of mere functionality, addressing sensory and emotional levels.
Celebrated for utilizing natural materials such as wood, clay and stone to create minimal sculptural furniture, Choi’s Basel works are cut from singular and colossal pieces of Basalt.
The work is massive, complex, and marries diverse surfaces—raw with refined, smooth with polished—to create remarkably balanced forms. While replete with references to the gestural brushstrokes of traditional ink painting, and the ancient Dolmens of his native Korea, Choi’s personal signature can be seen in the juxtaposition of lightness to mass, and the tension between crafted and natural elements. These relationships among opposites recalling the duality of yin and yang, are inherent to his work.
About Byung Hoon Choi
Byung Hoon Choi was born in Gangwon-do, Korea in 1952. In 1974, he graduated from the Hong-ik University with a degree in Applied Fine Arts. He later completed a Masters of Fine Art from Hong-ik in 1979. In 1977, he founded an association of young artists, ‘The Society for the Creation of Decorative and Applied Arts’ which had a profound effect on defining the future of applied arts in Korea. He travelled around the world during the 1970’s soaking up inspiration from the Mayan, Incan, African and Indian cultures. He has exhibited his work throughout Korea and the world, while concurrently working as a professor at a number of schools. Choi has also developed extensive research in the field of furniture design and crafts, working as a research professor, throughout his career. He is currently a professor of woodworking and furniture design at Hong-ik University, in Seoul, Korea.
