My Way
September - November 2011, Samsung Life Insurance Building, Seoul, Korea
Discover the exhibitionPLATEAU, Samsung Museum of Art is pleased to present « My Way », a retrospective of Jean-Michel Othoniel from September 8 to November 11, 2011. This world tour exhibition was first presented at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in March and travelled to the Hara Museum in Tokyo and the Brooklyn Museum in New York in the summer of 2012 after the current exhibition at PLATEAU in Seoul.
Jean-Michel Othoniel has consciously distanced himself from the contemporary art trends over the past 25 years, instead pursuing a unique sculptural universe inspired by his personal life. His acute sensibility for loss and extinction has unraveled in his works through diverse transformative mediums, expressing the beauty and repulsion of the body. The artist has created a magical world sublimating tragedy into beauty and harmony, guiding the viewers into his own fantastic universe longed by our contemporary society.
As the title of the exhibition « My Way » indicates, this exhibition hopes to provide an opportunity to present Othoniel’s unique artistic path over the past 25 years, sublimating the mourning of loss into beauty in his own way. Moreover, the exhibition also includes a photo-archive documenting the artist’s prolific travels and personal encounters, which form the basis of his artistic inspiration, as well as a participatory installation, entitled The Wishing Wall that will allow more intimate connection between the visitors and the artist.