By Ines Min
Staff reporter

‘2010 에르메스재단 미술상’ 후보 3인인 박진아·배종헌·양아치 작가의 전시가 서울 신사동 ‘아뜰리에 에르메스’에서 9월19일까지 열린다.

올해로 11회째를 맞는 에르메스재단 미술상은 에르메스코리아가 에르메스재단의 후원을 받아 제정한 것으로, 매년 국내 미술작가 중 3명을 선정해 작품제작 및 전시를 지원하고

최종 수상자에게 상패와 상금을 수여한다. 오는 9월2일 최종 수상자를 결정하지만 수상 여부와 상관없이 후보 3인의 신작을 전시하는 독특한 방식을 갖고 있다.

박이소·서도호·박찬경·임민욱 등 국내외에서 작품성을 인정받고 있는 쟁쟁한 작가들이 거쳐간 상으로, 올해에는 개성이 완전히 다른 세 작가의 작품을 함께 볼 수 있다.

The 11th annual 2010 Hermes Foundation Misulsang exhibition kicked off at the Atelier Hermes in Sinsa-dong, southern Seoul, last week.

The ``misulsang’’ (art award) exhibition features Park Ji-na, Bae Jong-heon and Yangachi, who are contending for the prize of 20 million won, which will be decided in a final judging process. In a press opening last week, each of the artists showed the personality and concepts behind their work, in tellingly brief but explanatory introductions.

Park Ji-na’s medium of choice is oil-on-canvas, but portrays the complexities of removed layers and distance. Taking photographs from her daily life, Park returns to the captured moment and re-envisions the time by painting the image, from an approach of objectivity.

``Paintings allow us to peep in on how the space is designed for an artistic activity in a specific community, what kinds of experiences an artist of an era goes through, how we make culture and how an art community is formed in a specific cultural background,’’ Park wrote in a statement.

Bae Jong-heon’s mixed media art confronts the boundaries between nature and man, inquiring into the effects that observing natural phenomenon has had on human life. From weather forecasts to reinterpretations of Romantic painters’ classics, Bae places his personal experiences into the satirical work.

Two of his major works are air-pump motored 3D versions of famous works by J.M. William Turner and Caspar David Friedrich, as recreated on the leftover packaging found through the artist’s own daily life, such as pizza boxes and emptied sacks of rice. The famous landscape paintings, frequent images for Bae in his youth, portray a sense of man conquering nature ― a thought that he dissents with.

A video of the artist showcases himself giving a personalized weather forecast, in which he mentions how he has to bring in the drying red peppers from the rooftop, while larger-than-life insect hybrids perch in a gallery corner (Bae’s attempt to replace bugs in his own home with more frightening, albeit fake, brethren).

Yangachi ― whose name means bully or gangster in Korean ― is a man of video art and few words. Preferring to allow his work to speak for itself, the artist, in fact, skipped the introduction entirely, instead giving the reporters time to view his video in full (``These things are always boring, to be honest’’).

Yangachi’s portion of the exhibition is a witty blurring of the fictitious and real words. His piece, a combination of two previous works, takes advantage of the surveillance camera to record the tale of Hyunsook the Dove ― a figure who becomes possessed by no less than six different spirits on her ``flight’’ from home to Dosan Park.

Accompanied by a thumping beat and an electronically-engineered narrator, Hyunsook’s erratic, dance-like movements can be seen simultaneously as endearing and tragic, sensual and awkward. Hyunsook, who is unable to trust her own, alien actions, flies back and forth, gazing and peering at the world around her.

``He had relations with his uniform off up until his 50s,’’ the narrator says in her strange, metallic voice.

The Hermes Foundation Misulsang was established in 2000 with the objective of promoting Korean art. Previous award winners include Kim Beom (2001), Suh Do-ho (2003) and last year’s Park Yoon-young.

This year’s judging panel includes both domestic and international professionals in the art field, who will announce the winner Sept. 2. The exhibition runs through Sept. 19 on the third floor of Maison Hermes Dosan Park in Sinsa-dong. Take exit 2 from Apgujeong Station, subway line 3. Call (02) 544-7722 for more information.