The Flâneur in New York

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exhibition Dates: May 3- May 31, 2019

Reception: Monday, May 20, 2019, 6-8pm

Venue: Maggi Peyton Gallery (1 Centre Street, 19th Floor South, New York, NY 10007)

Host: The office of the Manhattan Borough President

Organizer: AHL Foundation Inc.

Guest Curator: Jin Young Coleman

Artists: Yiso Bahc, Heejung Cho, Sungho Choi, Jae-Kyoo Chong, Bang Geul Han, Kyoung Eun Kang, Bonam Kim, Yongjae Kim

 

 

The AHL Foundation presents The Flâneur in New York, an exhibition curated by Jin Young Coleman and on view May 2–31, 2019 at Maggi Peyton Gallery in the Manhattan Borough President’s Office. Inspired by the concept of the flâneur (an urban spectator who experiences the modernizing city), this exhibition presents Korean artists who observe New York and our lives in the city with a flâneur’s gaze. Participating artists include Yiso Bahc, Heejung Cho, Sungho Choi, Jae-Kyoo Chong, Bang Geul Han, Kyoung Eun Kang, Bonam Kim, and Yongjae Kim.

Looking at the rapidly changing, busy and crowded city, Yongjae Kim ironically captures the still images of New York, stirring feelings of loneliness, detachment, and anxiety. For Heejung Cho, the cityscape is something spectacular but patterned and repeated; she chooses the fragmented images of the city and repeats them in various mediums and colors. Jae-Kyoo Chong intervenes with the cityscape by slicing photographic images and juxtaposing them to make a completely new image.

Yiso Bahc and Sungho Choi’s approach is conceptual and satirical. Yiso Bahc’s drawing is an exact copy of an old Korean matchbox logo, an image of a UN Tower that exists nowhere but in the imagination of Koreans who used to use the matches in the 1960s and ’70s. Sungho Choi chose dozens of newspapers published in various languages in New York and created the collage of American Pie, a symbolic image of multiethnicity.

Some artists focus more on the psychological experience. Bonam Kim’s video shows her exploring the street confined in a wooden structure, conveying the feeling of isolation in the middle of a crowd. For Kyoung Eun Kang, anything from her relationship with family could be art; the medicine envelope sent by her mother becomes a sculpture, and the recorded conversation between her parents becomes a poem. Bang Geul Han’s video presents conversation in the form of heavily edited text that reveals her contemplation on life as an artist living in New York.

A partnership between the AHL Foundation and the Manhattan Borough President’s Office, this exhibition celebrates Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May. “New York City needs non-western voices to be uplifted more often, so joining with AHL’s commitment to showcasing artists of Korean descent felt like a perfect fit for our May exhibition,” said Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer.

The Flâneur in New York is on view May 2–31, 2019 at Maggi Peyton Gallery in the Manhattan Borough President’s Office, 1 Centre St., 19th Floor South, New York, NY 10007.

There will be a reception on Thursday, May 20, 6–8pm.

 

About the Curator

Jin Young Coleman is a NYC based art advisor and curator. She was a curator at Alternative Space Loop in Seoul and the Children’s Museum of the Arts in New York. As an independent curator, she has collaborated with various art organizations including the Ilmin Museum of Art in Seoul, the Seoul Art Space Geumcheon, and the New York Art Residency & Studios Foundation. She was awarded the 2010 Dong-A Art Prize for curating the show The Moment of Transposition. She also co-curated the traveling show, 5C5C at Centro Internazionale per l’Arte Contemporanea in Rome and the KT&G Sangsangmadang Gallery in Seoul. Jin Young started working as an art advisor in 2013 and founded Jin Coleman Art Advisory in 2016, drawing on her professional experience in Modern and Contemporary Art.

 

About the Artists

Kyoung Eun Kang is an artist born in South Korea, who lives and works in New York City. She received a BFA and MFA in Fine Arts from Hong-ik University in Seoul, South Korea and from Parsons The New School for Design, New York.

Her work ranges from live performance to video, painting, drawing, photography, installation, text and sound pieces. She has had solo exhibitions at NURTUREart, Brooklyn, NY; Soho 20 +/- project space, Brooklyn, NY; BRIC project room, Brooklyn, NY; Here Arts Center, NY; A.M Richard Fine Art project room, Brooklyn, NY and at PRIMETIME, Brooklyn, NY.

Group exhibitions include Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY; A.I.R gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, Australia; Museum of the imperial city, Beijing, China and the National Museum of Modern Art, South Korea.

She is a recipient of residencies and fellowships at ChaNorth, Pine Plains, NY: BRIC, Brooklyn, NY; NARS Foundation, Brooklyn,NY; Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture,ME; Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE; Lower East Side Rotating studio program, NY and New York Foundation for the Arts.

 

Heejung Cho is a sculptor and printmaker, born in Seoul, Korea. Currently, she lives in Brooklyn and works in Manhattan. She received her BFA in sculpture at Seoul National University and her MFA in visual art at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. She participated in an artist studio at Museum of Arts and Design, art in residence at Newark Museum, AIM program at Bronx Museum of Arts, artist in residence at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts and IAP program at New York Foundation for the Arts. Her works have been recognized by AHL Foundation, Arts Council of Korea, PS122 Studio Program, Triangle Arts Association, Dodge Foundation, and the Contemporary Artist Center. Cho exhibits works internationally in the U.S., Korea, China, and Sweden.

 

Yongjae Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1985. Kim works predominantly on the representational painting that describes a psychological and emotional landscape in the urban environment. He completed a B.F.A. at Seoul National University in Seoul in 2011 and an M.F.A. at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 2014.

Kim’s work has been exhibited in various places, such as Volta New York, Sotheby Institute of Art in New York, Attleboro Arts Museum in Massachusetts, St. Joseph College in Brooklyn, New York, BRIC in Brooklyn New York, Muriel Guepin Gallery in New York and Dubner Moderne, Lausanne, Switzerland.

He received the membership of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Studio Program in New York in 2015, The Best Color Work Award from Korea Society of Color Studies in 2014, South Korea, the First Place Award for cityscape works from Art Rom Gallery in 2018, and his work was selected for the 9^th Annual Grand Prize of Manifest Gallery in Ohio as a finalist. He attended Joshua Tree Highland Artists Residency Program in 2013.

 

Sung Ho Choi was born in Seoul, Korea. He left for the U.S. in 1981. During his 40 years of artistic career, he restlessly worked as a cultural activist, a public art producer, an art educator, and a data collector.

 

Bahc Yiso: The artistic activities of Bahc Yiso are divided into two periods: the New York Period starting in 1982 when he went to the USA to study and the Seoul Period from 1995, the year of his return to Korea. After graduating from Pratt Institute, he was involved in social activities alongside a passionate art practice under the name of Bahc Mo. He founded an alternative art space ‘Minor Injury’ in Brooklyn and caught the attention of the New York art world as a young leader raising a voice for neglected immigrants and minorities. He was also enthusiastic about publication and played a pivotal role in introducing Korean art to audiences in New York. After returning to Korea in 1995, he changed his name to Bahc Yiso and took up a position as a professor at SADI(Samsung Art & Design Institute) which had recently opened. He devoted his efforts to establish a new way of teaching art as well as creating works. He presented his works in a number of major national and international exhibitions including Gwangju Biennale (1997) and Yokohama Triennale (2001). In 2002, he won the Hermès Korea Missulsang and was participated in the Korean Pavilion at Venice Biennale as a representative artist of Korea. However, just when he was attracting attention from the art world in Korea and overseas, he suddenly passed away from cardiac arrest in 2004, leaving behind much grief and sorrow. (Citation from National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, https://www.mmca.go.kr/eng/exhibitions/exhibitionsDetail