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Irene Pyne

South Korea’s contemporary art scene might be a little younger than its Asian counterparts but, if the talent at Art Basel Hong Kong is any indication, the cultural landscape is ripe for the picking.
Haneyl Choi, an emerging Korean artist who infuses a LGBTQ narrative into his minimalist sculptural installations, will be presenting at Art Basel Hong Kong this month. The solo exhibition, presented by P21 Gallery, marks his first foray at the premier international art show, as well as his artistic debut in Hong Kong.
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“Because I’m not an activist, but an artist, I’m studying how to present the story of the LGBTQ community to the world through art,” said 30-year-old Choi. “I’m constantly exploring different creative methodologies and, as I ruminate about how the genre of sculpture has been neglected by the art world, I think about how the LGBTQ community has been largely neglected by history, too.”
Although South Korea does not criminalise homosexuality, the country lacks protection against discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation, and denies same-sex couples the right to marry or adopt children.

Choi adds: “Many challenges still remain for the LGBTQ community in Korean society as we continue to be treated as outsiders. But at the same time, it is also where homoeroticism or non-normative sexualities have been explored in more contemporary spaces, like K-pop fan fiction.”
The artist refers to K-pop’s gay-themed fanfiction, a genre of fictionalised depictions of K-pop singers in popular bands such as BTS. The stories, which are also referred to as “Real Person Slash” or RPS, depicts the K-pop idols in same-sex relationships, often involving sexual acts that have prompted ethical questions about the depiction of celebrities in online literature.
Fans of the stories have defended them as part of the varied culture that surrounds the K-pop industry. 
Because I’m not an activist, but an artist, I’m studying how to present the story of the LGBTQ community to the world through art
Haneyl Choi
For Choi’s first US exhibition in 2018, the artist took up byung-poong, the traditional Korean folding screen, as an art medium, using it as a locus to bridge global LGBTQ identity with Korean national pride. The installation, titled Traitor’s Patriotism, offered commentary on the collision between traditional Korean values and queer liberation. 
For the sculptor’s upcoming Art Basel exhibition, he has produced a series of minimal, abstract, metal sculptures and overlaid them with impressions of his LGBTQ friends.
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“To respond to society’s continuing treatment of the LGBTQ community as ‘abnormal’, I portrayed my friends, who are living, breathing and productive, contributing members of society, as sculptures, in mundane city settings,” said Choi.
Although the installation artist is still cutting his teeth in the international art circuit, Choi presented at a group exhibition at One and J. Gallery in Seoul earlier this year alongside Hong Seung-Hye and Park Kyung Ryul.
Park’s In His World (2011), acrylic on canvas, sold 61 per cent above mid-estimate at Christie’s Hong Kong in 2018, at US$17,527.

Art expert Miki Wick-Kim, in her Korean Contemporary Art publication, said that the Korean contemporary art scene flourished only after South Korea’s period of democratisation in the mid-80s.
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Particularly, Wick-Kim cites the “Whitney Biennial edition”, the longest-running survey of American art, in 1993, as a watershed moment in the country’s contemporary art history, where “the public and many artists were able for the first time to engage directly in the critical discourse of the international art community”. 
Although Choi is unable to be physically present at Art Basel Hong Kong this year due to Covid-19 travel restrictions, the sculptor is “thrilled and honoured” about the opportunity to participate: “I hope the pandemic will be over soon so that I can visit the fair someday and meet everyone,” said Choi.
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What does ‘Real Person Slash’ or RPS fan fiction – which depicts K-pop idols like BTS in gay relationships – say about Korean society and the queer community?
Choi considers such questions at his Hong Kong debut with P21 Gallery – a series of minimal metal sculptures portraying his LGBTQ+ friends


At his first international art fair feature, the millennial artist explores the collision of conservative Korean society with queer liberation
