Category: Art & Artist

“Cutting up, breaking apart, or melting, are some of the ways I lose my familiarity with an object and see its material qualities. Exposing a hidden rawness, I am able to consider the gap between how I know these objects and what they really are. I hope my sculptures can turn things that are considered passive and inert into new unknowns with unexpected eccentric faces.” – Woomin Kim

Through her textile and sculptural projects, Woomin Kim examines the active materiality of daily objects and urban landscapes. One of the three artists featured in Interlacement: A Group Exhibition at The Korea Society, Kim discusses her art and career.

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

About the Artist:

Woomin Kim is a South Korean artist currently based in Queens, NY. Kim has participated in numerous exhibitions and residencies at the Queens Museum, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston Children’s Museum, Art Omi and MASS MoCA, among others. Kim has received fellowships and awards from the Joan Mitchell Foundation and the Korean Cultural Center, and her works have been featured in The New York Times, Hyperallergic and BOMB Magazine. Kim holds a B.F.A from Seoul National University and received an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. https://www.woominkim.com/

The thing that really struck me was the grit and resilience of the people — they were in the process of recovering from a devastating war that displaced so many people. But the markets were crowded, people went about their business — things had to get done! They had to survive and thrive! … When I see Korea now and think back to that time, Korea’s success should come as a surprise to no one. – Marie Ann Yoo

The photographs in The Feeling of Han: Portraits of Post-War Korea (1956-1957) by Marie Ann Yoo capture the scenery and people of a specific place and time.

As a young Korean-American woman who grew up in Hawaii, Yoo had a chance to visit Korea for the first time in her life when her mother was offered a job in Seoul. Excited to be going overseas for the first time, she was inspired by what she saw and saved money while working on the U.S. base in Korea to purchase a 35mm Petri camera. Yoo roamed the city and the countryside and took pictures everywhere she went, documenting life among the affluent expatriate social circles at the Bando Hotel, where her mother worked, and the everyday life of commoners. Her arresting images of post-war Korea are a testament to her existence as both an insider and outsider to the society she photographed.

Through the impatient stance of a woman on the streets, the grim expression of a man trudging forward to an unknowable destination, a moment of lift in a child’s gesture, the crowds, the buildings, the mud and metal and shambles, Yoo captured a Korea far from the glittery slick nation of the 21st century. We see the nation it was, and the people’s fierce will to manifest and become what they could only dream.

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

About the Speaker:

Marie Ann Kauang-Hee Yoo was born in 1936 in Honolulu, Hawai’i and raised on the Kunia Camp plantation. A descendant of the first wave of Korean immigrants to the US (1903-1905), her family’s reasons for immigration to the territory of Hawai’i were like other Koreans: to practice Christianity, escape Japan’s colonial rule, and ensure their children’s education.

In 1955 Syngman Rhee, a family friend and the first president of South Korea, offered Yoo’s mother Salome Han the opportunity to be the Public Relations Director of Bando Hotel, which was located in what is now the site of the Lotte Hotel in Myeongdong near City Hall in Seoul. Marie Ann, then a student at the University of Hawaii, and her sister Elizabeth, who had just graduated from high school, joined their mother and moved to Seoul for one year.

After her sojourn to Korea, Marie Ann transferred to the University of Oregon where she majored in East Asian Studies and political science. After relocating to the Bay Area, she married Dr. Tai-June Yoo and raised three daughters, Stephanie, Christine, and Katherine. She traveled the world and lived across the continental United States, returning many times to visit Korea and lived there again, briefly from 1969-70. After decades away from the Islands, she has returned home to retire in Hawai’i.

Image courtesy of Mina Cheon Studio

The global art activist Mina Cheon draws inspiration from the partition of the Korean peninsula, in which she enlists a range of mediums including painting, sculpture, video, installation, and performance to deconstruct and reconcile the precarious history and ongoing coexistence between North and South Korea. Her solo exhibition at The Korea Society showcases her most recent painting series of Unification Flags.

Mina Cheon will discuss her art and career; with a special introduction by Ethan Cohen, director of Ethan Cohen Gallery, New York.

This Artist Talk will be held at The Korea Society. The number of attendees will be limited, and all attendees are encouraged to have been fully vaccinated by the date of the event. Face covering is required to enter the building. Live webcast of the event will also be available.

Artist Talk: Mina Cheon
Wednesday, June 30th, 2021 | 6:30 PM (EDT)

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Mina Cheon is a new media artist, scholar, educator, and activist best known for her “Polipop” paintings inspired by Pop art and Social Realism. She has exhibited internationally, including at the Asia Society Triennial (2021); Busan Biennale (2018); Baltimore Museum of Art (2018); American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, Washington, DC (2014); Sungkok Art Museum, Seoul (2012); and Insa Art Space, Seoul (2005). Her work is in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton; and Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul. Cheon received a BFA in painting from Ewha Womans University; an MFA in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and an MFA in imaging and digital art from UMBC: An Honors University in Maryland; and a PhD in philosophy of media and communications at the European Graduate School, Saas-Fee, Switzerland. She is currently a Full-time Professor at MICA.

Statues, paintings, and masks—like the bodies of shamans and spirit mediums—give material form and presence to otherwise invisible entities, and sometimes these objects are understood to be enlivened. Dr. Laurel Kendall explores how magical images are expected to work with the shamans and spirit mediums in contemporary South Korea and compares the use of these shamanic images with similar practices in Vietnam, Myanmar, and Bali. The question of empowered images concerns not only what they are expected to do but how they are fabricated, marketed, cared for, disposed of, and sometimes transformed into art-market commodities and museum artifacts.

Sacred Images and Magical Things

Thursday, May 6, 2021 | 6 PM EDT

Soonchoel Byun‘s solo exhibition at the Korea Society Gallery, his first one in New York in two decades, showcases nine photographs from his 2015 series Eternal Family which records and digitally creates a reunion between family members separated by the Korean War. Created with utmost sensitivity and respect for the personal and historical tragedy, Byun’s art is a poignant reminder of the devastating consequences of the war that still remains today.

Byun recorded his artist talk in Seoul, Korea, where he lives and works. He is joined by Professor Young Min Moon of University of Massachusetts Amherst, painter and art critic.

Due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), our gallery is open only by appointment. The appointment must be made at least 24 hours prior to the scheduled visit. To make an appointment, please contact info@koreasociety.org. All visitors will be required to wear a mask as well as complete the safety questionnaire upon arrival.

Artist Talk: Soonchoel Byun
with Soonchoel Byun and Young Min Moon

PREMIERES: Wednesday, October 28, 2020

Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday 10 AM-4:30 PM
By Appointment Only

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

Soonchoel Byun studied at the School of Visual Art in New York, and he has exhibited widely since then. Known for his vivid portraits of people from diverse backgrounds, Byun presents a candid yet sincere depiction of contemporary Korean life as it evolves with time.

Young Min Moon is Professor in the Department of Art, University of Massachusetts Amherst. Moon’s art and art criticism reflect his migration across cultures and his awareness of the hybrid nature of identities forged amid the complex historical and political relationships between Asia and North America. His most recent publication is a chapter on contemporary Korean art history in A Companion to Korean Art (Wiley, 2020). He is a recipient of 2014 Guggenheim Fellowship.