byung hoon choï presents eternity & instant at laffanour galerie downtown

byung hoon choï presents eternity & instant at laffanour galerie downtown
all images courtesy of laffanour galerie downtown

byung hoon choï: eternity & instant
laffanour galerie downtown, paris
now through february 27, 2016

from now until february 27, 2016, paris’ laffanour galerie downtown presents a selection of work by korean designer and master craftsman byung hoon choï. the exhibition ‘eternity & instant’ comprises both new and recent pieces completed in natural materials such as basalt, granite, marble, stone and wood. the collection of furniture sculptures — tables, consoles and benches — embodies byung hoon choï’s attention to balance, and reflects a meeting point between raw and refined. the pieces mirror the gestural brushstrokes of traditional ink painting, and the ancient dolmens of the choi’s native korea.

installation view of ‘eternity & instant’ at laffanour galerie downtown, paris

‘over the decades, choi byung hoon’s oeuvre has been revealing a formal repertory of a rare poetry, where the spiritual in art enchants a real and sincere rejuvenation, such as the greatest artists have been wishing for ever since kandinsky,’ writes olivier gabet, director of the museums of decorative arts, paris on the exhibition. ‘in an art which lets us meditate upon the intertwining of forms, the alliance of opposed and complementary forms of matter, where stone becomes an aerial punctuation, metal a comma with an unexpected graphic flexibility, and wood and ebony an organic architecture.’

exhibition view of a table and bench made with wood, stone and basalt

‘looking at these works, from afar and close up, in the enclosed space of a house or set in the ups and downs of a landscape, is to accept to let oneself be amazed, a lowly and refined position, by these never precarious balances, long thought about and imagined, where nothing is left to chance, neither the choice of the striped or smooth effects of a piece of marble, nor the surface of granite, be it velveteen or harsh to the touch, nor the sensual roundness of ebony,’ gabet continues. 

bench made of basalt with a natural stone leg, 2013

installation view of a bench made of white marble and basalt (front) and a console rendered in basalt (back) 

detail of a table made of basalt, 2015

a table made of black granite and ipe wood legs (front) and bench made of basalt (back)

bench made of basalt, natural stone legs, 2015

a table made with wood and natural stone 

installation view of a table and bench at laffanour galerie downtown

a bench made in basalt

overall exhibition view of ‘eternity & instant’

byung hoon choï