Exhibition opening 'MoNAF Seoul' Gallery Sogool, near Hongdae, July 24 -30

MoNAF Seoul
an exhibition at Gallery Sogool, Hongdae, July 25- 30, 2009
Opening Friday, July 24, 6-8pm

Brad Betts and Josh Daniel's show at Gallery Sogool will explore ideas about the 'art museum'- what its purpose is, how and why the public interacts with it, and the motivations behind establishing and running an art institution.

They plan to create an installation throughout the entire gallery space, temporarily transforming it into an imaginary art museum called 'MoNAF' (Museum of National Arts Foundation). MoNAF will be presented to the public as a real museum, with 'ticketing facilities', an 'education centre' and different 'collections'. Yet these won't be exactly the same as what a visitor to a real art museum would find. Instead they'll reference the real thing, allowing the viewer to think about the experience of visiting an established, respected museum and how the museum creates that experience. The tone of the exhibition will be humorous, however everything in the installation will look and feel as if it is intended to be taken seriously. The artists aim to unsettle and intrigue the visitor, and make them question the motivation behind this, and other, museums.

The installation will be created through fitting out the gallery spaces with furniture and art objects that are made to look like objects normally found in an art museum, but are actually made of cardboard or other cheap and impermanent materials. On first glance these will look real, but on closer inspection they will be obviously fake, with the aim of both amusing and disconcerting the viewer.

Brad Betts and Josh Daniel are Australian artists, currently residing in Seoul. Brad studied sculpture at the Victorian College of the Arts and animation at international college Animation Mentor. Josh majored in printmaking at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and Monash University. They have both exhibited in solo and group shows in Australia, with Josh curating and project managing an event for the 2006 Next Wave Festival, while Brad also works as a freelance 3D animator.

Gallery Sogool, #393-4 Chang-Jeon Dong, Mapo Gu, Seoul
www.sogool.in
Contact us on 010 3143 8899 (Brad), 010 8050 7743 (Josh),
011 9472 1084 (Joo Yeon, Gallerist)