Held Simultaneously at Lotte Department Store's Dongtan and Gwangbok Branches
<Neighborhood> and <Analogue: Chris Measor Solo Exhibition>
Lotte Department Store is holding exhibitions on the theme of animals simultaneously at two locations, its Dongtan and Gwangbok branches. First, the <Neighborhood> exhibition, running through June 11 at Lotte Gallery on the 2nd floor of the Dongtan branch, is the first project of a group of artists who came together to raise awareness of abandoned dogs and to create opportunities for people to enjoy a happy, healthy life together with companion animals.
The five artists at the heart of the project are Kim Geon-ju, Drawing Mary, Lee Seul-ro, 275c, and Stefani Michova. Since early this year, they have visited the abandoned-dog shelter Korean K9 Rescue (KK9R) numerous times, volunteering for tasks such as walking the dogs, bathing them, and tending the flower beds, and they have captured that process in their works. Lee Seul-ro and Drawing Mary are prime examples. They depicted in their paintings the dogs they met while volunteering at KK9R. The dogs that served as the models for these works are still being cared for at the shelter, so visitors can adopt the actual models along with the artworks. Stefani Michova, who has herself already adopted and is raising an abandoned dog, used photography to convey her hope that the animals at the shelter will quickly find families. Kim Geon-ju used painting and video to portray how a close acquaintance adopted and is raising an abandoned dog named 'Changdeok-i,' while 275c expressed the joy, happiness, gratitude, and emotion felt while volunteering through graphic icons.
At the Gwangbok branch, <Analogue>, an exhibition by Chris Measor that uses animals to express fables of human life, runs through June 18. Chris Measor is a British-Canadian artist who, after developing an interest in Japanese animation, expanded his focus to East Asian culture as a whole; he currently lives and works in Busan. The cats, bears, ducks, rabbits, and other animals that appear in his work are the artist's alter egos and guides, transcending race, class, age, and sexual identity. The artist dresses them up as a variety of characters—fairies, girls, self-made figures, and more—to depict fairy-tale and mythological worlds. It is a kind of fable that tells stories about people through animals.
Held simultaneously at Lotte Department Store's Dongtan and Gwangbok branches, these exhibitions were conceived with the aim of reflecting, through art, on our lives and culture shared with animals. Rather than presenting finished results, they signal changes that will continue into the future. Even after the exhibitions close, visitors can still encounter the artists' works: with sponsorship from Lotte Department Store, the five artists who took part in the Dongtan branch's <Neighborhood> exhibition left a mural on the entrance gate of KK9R, and Chris Measor's work at the Gwangbok branch is also permanently installed at Lotte Premium Outlet East Busan. Through these exhibitions, Lotte Department Store will donate a portion of the proceeds to the organization to help spread a healthy culture for an era of living together with animals, and it plans to continue with large-scale cultural campaigns featuring companion dogs in the second half of the year as well.
