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Category: Art & Artist

Soonchoel Byun Eternal Family

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@Byun Soonchoel. Courtesy of the artist and ARARIO GALLERY

September 8 – February 26, 2021|

Exhibition extended through February 26, 2021

The Korea Society presents Soonchoel Byun: Eternal Family, his first solo exhibition in New York in two decades. In his Eternal Family series, Byun imagines 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.

Soonchoel Byun (b. 1969) 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.

The Korea Society Gallery will be closed December 12, 2020 – January 3, 2021.

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.

 

Soonchoel Byun
Eternal Family

September 8 – February 26, 2021

@ The Korea Society 
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor, NYC

Gallery hours: (M-F) 10 AM – 4:30 PM by appointment

**Pre-registration is now required for all Korea Society events, and an ID is required for security.**

For more information, please contact info@koreasociety.org or call (212) 759-7525.

 

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Artist Talk: Ik-Joong Kang with Dr. Katherine Anne Paul

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Internationally acclaimed artist Ik-Joong Kang in conversation about his art and career with Dr. Katherine Anne Paul, Curator of Asian Art, the Birmingham Museum of Art.

Due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), this program will be conducted virtually. This live session will be provided free of charge at the specified date and time. A limited number of viewing links will be provided to the people who sign up through the form below. Those unable to view the live session will have the opportunity to watch the recorded video or listen to the podcast soon after.

 

 

Gallery Slide

 

Other works

 

     

 

Artist Talk: Ik-Joong Kang
with Dr. Katherine Anne Paul

Friday, May 15, 2020 | 6:30 PM

@ The Korea Society 
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor, NYC

Gallery hours: 10 AM – 4:30 PM by appointment

For more information, please contact info@koreasociety.org or call (212) 759-7525.

 

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Three Artists, Three Cities: The COVID-19 Diaries from MiA Collective Art

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Three young artists – in New York, Berlin, and Seoul – record their situation and response to the pandemic, shelter-in-residence, and the changing landscape of the city each one lives in. Featuring Woo Ram Jung, Grace Noh, and kate-hers RHEE, the artists compare and contrast their experiences and ask themselves a question: what is the role of the creative community during a world-wide pandemic?

 


This video was produced in collaboration with MiA Collective Art.
Visit MiA Collective Art’s online exhibition:
http://www.miacollectiveart.com/covid19-diaries-series-part1/online-exhibition

 

 

Three Artists, Three Cities: The COVID-19 Diaries from MiA Collective Art
with
Woo Ram Jung, Grace Noh and kate-hers RHEE

Friday, May 1, 2020

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

 

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Woo Ram Jung is a photography-based artist whose background lies in architecture. Jung received his Master of Architecture from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 2010 and MFA in Photography and Related Media from Parsons School of Design in 2014. His street photography explores his interaction with anonymous strangers. His work has been exhibited at MiA: Beijing Station: First Chapter in Beijing, #IRL In Real Life, Aronson Gallery at Sheila C. Johnson Design Center in New York, Street Shots/NYC, South Seaport Museum in New York, ALIGN, Atrium Gallery at Temple University in Philadelphia, and You Are Not Paranoid, Observe Yourself Being Watched, Jimei x Arles International Photography Festival in Xiamen.

Grace Noh received her M.A. in Art History from New York University Institute of Fine Arts. Her curatorial practice revolves around translating the past and forming them into new ideas in the present and the future. She challenges and pushes the boundaries of viewing and understanding exhibition format to encourage greater discussion. She has curated and organized exhibitions, produced digital contents and published journals for a number of institutions, galleries and magazines, including Jimei x Arles International Photography Festival in Xiamen, China and Fotografiska New York. In addition, she co-founded MiA Collective Art, an art collective platform based in Beijing and New York.

kate-hers RHEE is an interdisciplinary artist, arts educator, and cultural worker. Orphaned in Seoul, Korea and transnationally adopted into a white working class Detroit suburb, she became painfully aware of racial and socio-economic differences at a young age. She employs performance, installation, drawing, and participatory events to explore the concepts of home, kinship, cultural acquisition/appropriation, and gendered violence. She is currently working between Newark and New York, at Rutgers University and researching at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Berlin, Germany at the Atelierhaus Mengerzeile; and South Korea, where she has been conducting independent research since 2014.

 

 

Ik-Joong Kang: Moon Jar/Longing for Home

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Current Exhibition: January 16 – May 21|

Internationally acclaimed artist Ik-Joong Kang’s new site-specific installation “Floating Dreams to the Moon” premiers at the Korea Society. This solo exhibition will feature several new paintings by the artist as well as an installation of objects and over 6,000 drawings from Korean War refugees.

Kang’s artistic practice provides a platform for humanity’s aspirations for achieving what appears to be impossible. Just as Korean moon-jars are made from two precarious halves united to form a whole, Kang’s paintings emphasizes how moon jars represent the potential of the Korean peninsula to reunite. Orchestrating the collection, replication, and display of Korean refugee drawings, Kang transforms these individual works to form his sculptures that polishes another facet of this cultural longing for home, accomplishing personal as well as political reunions.

Born in Cheongju and raised in Seoul, Kang moved to New York in 1984 where he lives today while working internationally. Kang was awarded a special Merit Prize in the Venice Biennale and his work is held in major public and private collections world-wide.

 

Gallery Slide

 

     

Of Interest: Artist Talk: Ik-Joong Kang with Dr. Katherine Anne Paul
May 15, 2020 | 6:30 PM

Ik-Joong Kang
Moon Jar/Longing for Home

January 16 – May 21, 2020

 

@ The Korea Society 
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor, NYC

Gallery hours: (M-F) 10 AM – 4:30 PM by appointment

**Pre-registration is now required for all Korea Society events, and an ID is required for security.**

For more information, please contact info@koreasociety.org or call (212) 759-7525.

 

Join our membership program here!

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Contemporary Photography in Korea: Reception & Panel Discussion

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FREE with RSVP

In conjunction with the current exhibition of Seunggu Kim’s photography series Better Days, the Korea Society is pleased to present a panel of selected photographers and curators for a discussion on contemporary photography in Korea.

 

Contemporary Photography in Korea: Reception & Panel Discussion
 

Thursday, November 14, 2019 | 6 PM

@ The Korea Society 
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor, NYC

Gallery hours: 10 AM – 4:30 PM by appointment

For more information, please contact info@koreasociety.org or call (212) 759-7525.

 

Join our membership program here!

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About the panelists

Taejoong Kim received an M.F.A. from Columbia University and a B.F.A. in photography from Chung-Ang University. Mr. Kim has done artist residencies in France, Germany, and Poland, and has received various grants and awards from Foam Fotografiemuseum(Amsterdam), Goethe-Institut(Seoul), The Jewish Museum(New York), among others. His last solo exhibition was at Space 776, New York, and he has participated in numerous group exhibitions in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. He lives and works in New York City and Seoul.

Grace Noh received her M.A. in Art History from New York University Institute of Fine Arts. Her curatorial practice revolves around translating the past and forming them into new ideas in the present and the future. She challenges and pushes the boundaries of viewing and understanding exhibition format to encourage greater discussion. She has curated and organized exhibitions, produced digital contents and published journals for a number of institutions, galleries and magazines, including Jimei x Arles International Photography Festival in Xiamen, China and upcoming exhibitions at Fotografiska New York. In addition, she co-founded MiA Collective Art, an art collective platform based in Beijing and New York.

Sora Woo is a visual artist and photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. Her works concentrate on observing the spatial relationship between humans and place. Woo is interested in discovering the threads of human interaction and what occurs after the absence of a person. Woo’s photographs capture a moment in the slow process of the passage of time. She not only depicts the passing of time, but also points out the physical and spiritual aspects of the “Irreversible”. Sora received her MFA from Pratt Institute, New York in 2018 and BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York in 2015.

Seunggu Kim Better Days

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CURRENT EXHIBITION | October 3-December 18, 2019 |

Reception and Panel Discussion on Contemporary Photography in Korea: Thursday, November 14, 2019 | 6 PM

The Korea Society is pleased to present Better Days, a solo exhibition featuring the photography of Korean artist Seunggu Kim.

Better Days is a series of photographs depicting what the artist describes as “Korean spectacles.” South Korea’s rapid development in the last 50 years has caused a lot of social ironies and incongruities, one of them being long working hours with very short period of break. Due to lack of time to travel, many Koreans end up spending holidays mostly around their hometown. The leisure places around Seoul and its suburbs try to entertain their customers by creating events and environments with increasing novelty, and the result is often an interesting blend of nature and artifice.

Using his camera to show the balance between unnatural elements and our own acclimation to the social ironies, Seunggu Kim describes and poses a question about our lifestyle and how we live.

Seunggu Kim graduated from Department of Photography, Sangmyung University in 2007 and received an M.F.A from the School of Visual Arts, Korea National University of Arts in 2012. He had five solo exhibitions in Seoul and had participated in numerous group exhibitions all over the world, including: Aperture Gallery, New York; Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Beijing; Somerset House, London; 72 Gallery, Tokyo; and Filter Space, Chicago. He was the Grand Prix Winner, 2019 Tokyo International Photography Competition, and was named Ones to Watch by British Journal of Photography.

Gallery Hours: M-F 10 AM-4 PM Appointment Necessary

 

Seunggu Kim
Better Days

October 3-December 18, 2019

Reception and Panel Discussion on Contemporary Photography in Korea: Thursday, November 14, 2019 | 6 PM

 

@ The Korea Society 
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor, NYC

Gallery hours: 10 AM – 4:30 PM by appointment

**Pre-registration is now required for all Korea Society events, and an ID is required for security.**

For more information, please contact info@koreasociety.org or call (212) 759-7525.

 

Join our membership program here!

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Happy Hour at Martos Gallery: Jennie Jieun Lee

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Meet us downtown! Join us at Martos Gallery with Assistant Director Sarah Han, and meet the artist Jennie Jieun Lee, whose solo exhibition Sizzling Gouba and Long Beach will be on view.

Complimentary drinks available

Tickets

 
The Korea Society Fellow, Patron and
Corporate members: FREE with registration

Tickets
 
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Happy Hour at Martos Gallery: Jennie Jieun Lee

Thursday, September 26, 2019 | 6 PM

Martos Gallery
41 Elizabeth St
New York, NY 10013
212 560 0670

 

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About the Artist:

Jennie Jieun Lee engages in a dialogue with clay as a medium through an array of techniques including wheel-throwing, hand-building, and slip casting. Similar to how clay retains the mark of the artist’s hands, Lee embeds her work with memory and nostalgia. Though the work sometimes alludes to (or openly expresses) as forms of figuration, Lee’s use of color and gesture transcend the medium beyond sculpture, function or vessel, and begin to blur the line between painting and sculpture.

Jennie Jieun Lee (b. 1973, Seoul, South Korea) currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She received a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1999, and an MFA from California State University, Long Beach in 2019.

Select exhibitions include: Mrs. Thompson’s Mirror, Martos Gallery New York; Marlborough Chelsea: Viewing Room, New York; Seizure Crevasse, The Pit, Los Angeles; Am I Ugly, Cooper Cole, Toronto; Smile Purgatory, Galerie Lefebvre et fils, Paris; Immigrant’s Ear, Levy Delval, Brussels; Object Painting – Painting Object, Jonathan Viner, London; Life Eraser, Brand New Gallery, Milan; and Halsey McKay, New York.

Select awards and fellowships include: CSULB Graduate Research Fellowship, 2018; John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 2017; Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant 2016; Artadia New York Award, 2015.

Artist Talk: Jung Hee Choi with Jay Sanders

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FREE with RSVP

““…while watching Ms. Choi’s hallucinatory screen, you may find yourself in an altered state of consciousness, on the verge of some ineffable, transcendental revelation.” – The New York Times.

Jung Hee Choi’s solo exhibition Black: Trans: Maya: Light at the Korea Society focuses on her series of light point drawings and graphite drawings. Utilizing both traditional and experimental techniques, Choi presents mesmerizing images that capture and transfigure light.

In this Artist Talk, Choi will be joined by Jay Sanders, Executive Director and Chief Curator of Artists Space.

 

ARTIST TALK: JUNG HEE CHOI
with Jay Sanders

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2019 | 6 PM

@ The Korea Society 
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor, NYC

Gallery hours: 10 AM – 4:30 PM by appointment

For more information, please contact info@koreasociety.org or call (212) 759-7525.

 

Join our membership program here!

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About the Speakers

Jung Hee Choi has exhibited and performed widely in the U.S., Europe and Asia, including Dia Art Foundation, Guggenheim Museum, Berliner Festspeile, and FRESH Festival in Bangkok. Choi received her B. A. and M.A. in art and sound from New York University, and she is a senior disciple of La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela in the classical Kirana vocal tradition. She founded with them The Just Alap Raga Ensemble in 2002. The New York Times listed Choi’s Tonecycle for Blues performed by her Sundara All Star Band as one of The Best Classical Music Performances of 2017.

Jay Sanders was named as Executive Director and Chief Curator of Artists Space in 2017. Prior to his tenure at Artists Space, Sanders was at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where he successfully reshaped its performance program and curated important exhibitions and event series, including 2012 Whitney Biennial. He has also served as a director of Greene Naftali Gallery and curated programs, series, and events for New York institutions such as White Columns, Sculpture Center, Performa, Anthology Film Archives, and Electronic Arts Intermix.

Jung Hee Choi – Black: Trans: Maya: Light

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 © Jung Hee Choi 2019 |

“…while watching Ms. Choi’s hallucinatory screen, you may find yourself in an altered state of consciousness, on the verge of some ineffable, transcendental revelation.” – The New York Times.

Jung Hee Choi is an artist and musician who works in video, performance, sound and multi-media installations, known for creating a state of immersion that emphasizes the totality of sense perception as a single unit for her viewers. In the process of assessing and defining the nature of reality, Choi’s inquiry focuses on how we perceive being and consciousness, and how ideas representing the interaction of opposites intertwine with one another.

Choi’s solo exhibition Black: Trans: Maya: Light at the Korea Society focuses on her series of light point drawings, graphite drawings, and etchings. Utilizing both traditional and experimental techniques, Choi presents mesmerizing images that capture and transfigure light.

Choi has exhibited and performed widely in the U.S., Europe and Asia, including Dia Art Foundation, Guggenheim Museum, Berliner Festspeile, and FRESH Festival in Bangkok. Choi received her B. A. and M.A. in art and sound from New York University, and she is a disciple of La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela in the classical Kirana vocal tradition.

 

Jung Hee Choi
Black: Trans: Maya: Light

July 25 – September 26, 2019

OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, July 25, 2019 | 6 PM

ARTIST TALK: Thursday, September 5, 2019 | 6 PM

 

@ The Korea Society 
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor, NYC

Gallery hours: 10 AM – 4:30 PM by appointment

Closed: Fridays in August | Monday, September 2 |

**Pre-registration is now required for all Korea Society events, and an ID is required for security.**

For more information, please contact info@koreasociety.org or call (212) 759-7525.

 

Join our membership program here!

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Korean Illuminated Sutra Transcription Talk & Demonstration

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Master artist Kim Kyeong-Ho is a pioneer and transmitter of the art of Sagyeong, Korean Sutra Copying. He was appointed by the Korean Ministry of Employment and Labor as the sole Traditional Sutra Copying Skills Transmitter, and is both an accomplished artist and teacher of this unique art that had not been practiced for 600 years since the Joseon Dynasty. During the lecture, Master Kim will speak about the process and ingredients used in his sutra transcription as well as his philosophy and approach to this thousand years old art form. He will also demonstrate a transcription with gold powder for 5 minutes.

Free admission for members & non-members with RSVP 

 

Korean Illuminated Sutra Transcription Talk & Demonstration
 with
Kim Kyeong-Ho

WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 2019 | 12 PM

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

 

For more information contact, Jay Oh, Arts & Culture Director.

 

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About the Speaker

Master Kim Kyeong-Ho serves as the President Emeritus of the Korea Sutra Copying Research Association and Director of the Korean Institute of Traditional Sutra Copying. Recently, he has devoted himself to the work of expansion, artistic exploration and creation of modern Sutra copying by incorporating various elements from the Bible, the Quran, mandalas, and tantras from the Indian and Tibetan traditions. Master Kim has had 20 solo and group exhibitions including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, U.S.) in 2010, Flushing Town Hall (New York, U.S.) in 2012, Korean Cultural Center (Los Angeles, U.S.) in 2014, and Tibet House US (New York, U.S.) in 2019. Master Kim is the author of 20 books (3 co-authorship).