Category: Press

Denver Post
Complex Magazine
This is Colossal
Arrested Motion
Hi Fructose Magazine
Modern In Denver Magazine

Denver’s David B. Smith Gallery seizes the moment
Denver Post, Ray Mark Rinaldi
August 19, 2012

“With its historic storefront on LoDo’s busy Wazee Street, the David B. Smith Gallery has a more prominent location than most of Denver’s upscale dealers. Yet it remains something of a secret pleasure within the city’s art scene…But its walls are covered with some of the most exciting work you’ll see around here. Especially right now….”

The Next Web, Hong Seon Jang, David B. Smith Gallery

This Artist Made a City Out of Movable Type
The Next Web, Harrison Weber
May 16, 2012

“Type City, a “metropolis created from moveable type” as NOTCOT calls it, was built by NY-based artist Hong Seon Jang. As you can see in the images below, the feat shows a true love for art, architecture and typography, with quite spectacular results.

Modern moveable type consists of independent characters and ligatures, which from there are assembled into words and then lines of text with a composing stick. Then, everything is bound together into a page image known as a forme.

Yes, computers are wonderful and make this entire process wildly easier — but there is something special about the results that come from a proper letterpress.”

Inhabitat, Hong Seon Jang, David B. Smith Gallery

Artist Creates Epic Cityscapes Using Vintage Letterpress Pieces
Inhabitat, Lori Zimmer
May 16, 2012

“From afar, Hong Seon Jang’s sculptural cityscapes look like models from a city planner’s office. But upon closer inspection, we can see that eachrising building and skyscraper is capped with a letter of the alphabet! The mini metropolises are in fact meticulously arranged conglomerations of disused typesets.

Jang’s Type City is part of a solo show of the artist’s work at David B. Smith Gallery in Denver, Colorado. The letterpress and wood sculpture stretches just two feet by 11 inches, but rises to 14 inches.  Despite the small volume, a massive amount of tinydisused metal pieces were used to build up the incredible relief.

Type City offers a birds-eye view of a city by the sea. Jang has used the letterpress pieces to create the city’s shoreline, complete with long docks that jut into the water. Grids of streets and low apartment buildings and business are made from small pieces, or longer ones places horizontally. Clusters of skyscrapers spring up in the “downtown” area near the water’s edge. The longer pieces stand up vertically, and the raised letters on their roofs give away their former use.

Type City’s incredible detail harkens the era of miniaturists, which coincidentally are related to the era when letterpresses were commonly used to print newspapers, books and other reading materials. Jang ironically uses the remnants from an obsolete vintage process to create the sprawling metropolis of modern times.”

Colossal, Hong Seon Jang, David B. Smith Gallery

A Miniature City Built with Metal Typography
Colossal, Christopher Jobson
May 14, 2012

“Type City is a recent artwork by artist Hong Seon Jang that uses pieces of movable type from a printing press to create an elaborate cityscape. It’s fascinating to watch as the need for printed books and typography wanes, the unused objects themselves are more frequently used as an actual medium….”

TREND HUNTER, Hong Seon Jang at David B. Smith Gallery

Transformative Art Installations:
The Hong Seon Jang Labyrinth Exhibition Alters Mundane Materials
TREND HUNTER, Sarah Moore
May 6, 2012

“The Hong Seon Jang’s Labyrinth exhibition at the David B. Smith Gallery in Denver, Colorado, showcases two unique collections curated specifically for the show, as well as a selection of his other work.

The New York-based artist traditionally forgoes the use of the usual artist’s materials of choice in favor of reworking mundane, man-made objects.

The ‘Black Forest’ collection, which Jang created as part of the exhibition, features multiple layers of overlapping, translucent tape pasted onto a black chalkboard. He makes another interesting material choice in his ‘Black Ruin’ project, which is also part of his solo show. By gingerly placing hot glue across a canvas, the artist adds flair to his work. Both of these projects fuse man with nature through the use of non-natural materials used to convey the environment which the artist is inspired by.”

DBSG, Hong Seon Jang, designboom

Hong Seon Jang: “Labyrinth” at David B. Smith Gallery
designboom, leigh db
May 3, 2012

“designboom has received an exclusive sneak peak of new york city-based artist hong seon jang’s upcoming solo show at david b. smith gallery in denver, colorado, USA. the exhibition is an assemblage of jang’s mixed-media sculptures and includes his tape drawings, decorated thread sculptures  and a miniature cityscape formed from letterpress pieces. the artist’s elaborate installations transform every-day objects into actualizations that evoke  both natural and man-made scenes.

in his tape drawing ‘black forest’, jang layers a typically transparent item until a ghostly wooded alcove is manifested upon a black chalkboard. with ‘black mirage’, the artist uses clear string, zig-zagging across the gallery space, to create the framework for darkened hot glue to adhere to. the effect is something like a man-made moss, growing upon the walls of the installation. again in ‘type city’, the artist re-imagines mass-produced materials, playing with the objects’ initial forms in order to create a whimsical, diminutive metropolis reminiscent of his new york city home.”

Hong Seon Jang Feature, Modern in Denver

 

We are pleased to announce an in-depth feature of Hong Seon Jang in the Spring 2012 issue of Modern In Denver magazine. The piece chronicles aspects of Jang’s practice and covers many of his most ambitious works to date. This feature sets the stage for his upcoming exhibition at David B. Smith Gallery, which will include a new series of Jang’s acclaimed tape drawings and mixed-media sculptural works. In addition, the artist will be in residence at the gallery for a week completing two largescale site-specific installations. This exhibition of new works will open May 4th, 2012.

The article can be read in its entirety by visiting the Modern in Denver website.