When I hear the word “drawing” associated with an exhibition, alarm bells immediately sound in my head and I expect to go along and look at a (usually) very talented but generic exhibition that is sometimes nice to look at but generally über uninspirational. Thankfully the exhibition “Drawing in Space” of the works of Jeongmoon Choi at galerie weisser elefant blasted this expectation and my mind!
 

This exhibition is not drawing but intricate webs of thread or wool – but not the kind your grandma knits with! Carefully and deliberately the thread has been shaped into beautiful and often very feng shui patterns. This was all very interesting but when I entered further into the gallery it became amazing.

Don’t let it pull the wool over your eyes! Photo: Frances Cragg, courtesy of galerie weisser elefant
 

The dark-rooms with ultra-violet lights not only revealed my lint ridden jacket but also the most fascinating part of the exhibition and aspect of Jeongmoon Choi’s work. The string seemed to be standing rigidly on its own in the air, in an installation that spanned its way through two rooms. The installation appeared almost like lights bouncing off various surfaces, and was so cleverly constructed that it could have been science. I felt like a thief weaving my way around alarm activated lasers and I now understood the drawing aspect of the exhibition title, Choi is literally drawing in mid-air!

Illusions

I was reminded of the work of Anthony McCall at the Hamburger Bahnhof. Firstly because it is truly hard to describe the amazing and mind-boggling feeling you get when you see the installation and secondly because it was like a reverse of the Anthony McCall exhibition. Instead of making light seem solid, the artist has made the solid seem like light beams.

 Before today I had never heard of the gallery, tucked away amongst so many other galleries in Berlin-Mitte. The artist, Jeongmoon Choi, is also new to me, but she is definitely an artist to watch in a gallery I am so excited to have discovered!

galerie weisser elefant Jeongmoon Choi “Drawing in Space” April 28th – June 2nd 2012, Tue – Sat: 1-7pm 

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Painting by Catrin Walz Stein

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