Lee Chun-Wook, Chair 98, 1998, etching and aquatint, recipient of the San Zanobi International Prize, 22nd International Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana, 1997.
The exhibition included ten prints made between 1996 and 1998. The prints by South Korean artist Lee Chun-Wook are inhabited by empty chairs. The artist primarily employs etching and aquatint and avoids colour. Her prints can be made in large formats and the chairs can be psychological symbols or metaphors. Her chairs are most often tied or bound by ropes; they hang in the air or assume other positions. We can understand them in a multifaceted way: as symbols of all kinds of social repression, as the artist’s search for her female identity or her longing for settlement. They can also be a symbol of interpersonal relations.