Space Uptown
On View April 30, 2022 — May 21, 2022
Opening Reception: Saturday April 30, 2022, 3 – 6 PM
AHL Foundation, Inc. 2605 Frederick Douglass Blvd., New York NY 10030
Wed – Sat, 12 – 6 pm
Buhm Hong, Gyun Hur, Devin Osorio, Dianne Smith
Curated by Amy Kahng
Space Uptown
Written by Amy Kahng
Following AHL Foundation’s move to Harlem after over a decade of operating in Chelsea, it is fitting that this inaugural exhibition in the new space uptown responds to its new neighborhood. An exhibition about locality and neighborhood history, the artists in Space Uptown reflect on the surrounding areas of Harlem and Upper Manhattan.
Though AHL Foundation is new to the block, it shares several historical resonances with the neighborhood. The building in which it is located was at one point an art gallery, another dynamic contributor to Harlem’s rich arts and culture scene. The great abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, for whom the street is named, was a fervent advocate for Chinese immigration and citizenship upon the policy proposal of Chinese Exclusion. And less than one mile away, Yuri Kochiyama hosted radical revolutionary organizing meetings for Black, Latino, and Asian American issues and social movements out of her home apartment for over 40 years.
With these histories in mind, Space Uptown features artistic practices that reflect the local neighborhood. Participating artists Buhm Hong, Gyun Hur, Devin Osorio, and Dianne Smith, three of whom live and work in upper Manhattan, consider the communities, histories, memories, and environments that make up Harlem and upper Manhattan more broadly.
Dianne Smith’s The House of Lois K. Alexander-Lane compiles footage from the artist’s participation as a model in the 1985-1989 iterations of Harlem Week. From 1979 to 1996, this enormous annual fashion event filled the entire length of 125th street “from river to river” with extravagant fashion shows, striking costumes, and local community involvement. The video consists of quick cut video clips of young Black models in dramatic 1980s designs strutting the temporary catwalk set up outside of the municipal government building, including the artist’s own participation. The video work honors and amplifies Harlem’s history of Black cultural production and reflects on the artist’s own biographical relationship to the neighborhood.
Buhm Hong designs intricate, complex architectural structures as works on paper and video renderings. Hong’s imagined architectures include staircases that continue impossibly into the ceiling; rooms filled with awkwardly placed pillars of varying shapes; countless rooftops dotted with elaborate spires; uneven and asymmetrically placed windows; and convoluted halls of absurd pathways that lead into incomprehensible voids. Hong loosely drawing from various architectural references from his personal biography such as the memory of his childhood homes, his travels domestically and abroad, and importantly his homebase of the neighborhood Harlem. The artist pieces together these architectural forms into ambiguous and puzzle-like structures. These designs, devoid of any human figures, invite viewers to envision meandering through these labyrinthine spaces.
Devin Osorio’s practice celebrates and documents his neighborhood of Washington Heights, where the artist grew up and is currently based. Osorio’s paintings and sculptural works highlight the quotidian experiences of community, work, commuting, and family life in this neighborhood. Osorio’s mixed sculptural work focuses specifically on the various and divergent communities that would congregate on specific neighborhood corners. His paintings often include compositions that use surreal and magical realist imagery, such as zoomorphic family members and distorted scale and perspective to visually document the personal histories of his hometown.
Gyun Hur’s installation There is a land beyond the river consists of twelve teardrop shaped glass vessels filled with water procured from the Hudson and Harlem River that border Harlem. The artist personally collects the Hudson River water and then carefully transfers it into the glass vessels. As the run of the exhibition continues, the water will slowly evaporate from the vessels, leaving behind the river sediment. This installation is one of four iterations of this series of tear drop vessels, with each serving as metaphorical representations of loss, commemoration, and memory. This particular installation was originally conceived in 2021 in memory of the victims of the Atlanta spa shooting. Installed here in Harlem, Hur’s work takes on new resonances within the current and historical movements for racial justice that have taken place in this neighborhood.
Introducing AHL to the neighborhood, this exhibition hopes to bridge this new space uptown with the lineages of interracial, Black, Latinx, and Asian American solidarities that have existed for decades within this neighborhood, shaping its history as a site of artistic, cultural, and political activity.
About The Artists
Buhm Hong was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1970. He received an MFA in Photography, Video and Related Media at School of Visual Arts, New York City. He has exhibited works in art institutions and galleries including San Diego Art Institute, Westport Art Center, Doosan Gallery in New York. and Kumho Museum of Art in Seoul. He also participated in the 2017 Jeju Biennale and APMAP in South Korea. Hong has held solo exhibitions at Art Space ZIP of the Paradise Foundation in Seoul, Suwon Art Museum in Suwon, and Soso Gallery, Paju. His work has been exhibited recently at Arko Art Center, Seoul and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Chung Ju.
Gyun Hur is an interdisciplinary artist and educator whose experience as an immigrant daughter deeply fuels her practice. Gyun recently completed Stove Works Residency, Bronx Museum AIM Fellowship, and Danspace Project Writer-in-Residency. She is the inaugural recipient of The Hudgens Prize. Her works have been featured in Cultured Magazine, Hyperallergic, The Cut, Art In America, Art Paper, Sculpture, Art Asia Pacific, Public Art Magazine Korea, and more. Her interest in art making in public space led her to various artist presentations at the TEDxCentennial Women, Living Walls: The City Speaks, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and The New School among others. Gyun has contributed as an artist-writer in fLoromancy, The Brooklyn Rail, and The Forgetory. Born in South Korea, she moved to Georgia at the age of 13. She currently lives in Brooklyn and teaches at Parsons School of Design.
Devin Osorio grew up as a first-generation Dominican American in the Northern Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights, where they find inspiration from the strong Dominican presence and the cultural and socioeconomic diversity. Using shared and self-reflective symbolism, Osorio honors Dominican culture through shrine-like paintings that incorporate plants, animals and glyphs to create a visual vernacular of and for the Dominican American community. Their work has been exhibited in New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and Madrid. Osorio earned a BFA from Savannah College of Art and Design.
Dianne Smith’s career as an interdisciplinary artist spans over twenty years. Her group and solo exhibitions include Visions for our Future; Echoes of our Past, Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art & Design, 2022, Stuff, Milstein Center, Barnard College, New York City, Uptown Triennial, Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, New York City, 2020, and Festival de Artes al Aire Libre, Museo Municipal de Guayaquil- Ecuador, Fulbright, 2013. Smith’s also known for her public art installations such as Gumboot Juba, Armory Week, New York City, Organic Abstract, the New York City Parks Department, Armory Week, and Bartow Pell Mansion as the Andrew Freedman Houses, Bronx, New York, 2011. Smith is included in the following collections: The National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Brodsky Organization, Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art, and Dianne Smith Papers Barnard Archives and Special Collections. She currently lives and works in Harlem, New York, and received her MFA from Transart Institute in Berlin, Germany, via the University of Plymouth, UK, in 2012.
About The Curator
Amy Kahng is an independent curator and PhD candidate in Art History and Criticism at Stony Brook University. Her dissertation project examines twentieth century Asian American artists and their relationship to land and landscape. Other research interests include global contemporary art, modern and contemporary art in Korea, transnational feminist art practices, and critical theory around race and indigeneity. Her MA thesis centered South Korean artist Lee Bul’s practice from the 1990s. Amy recently exhibited Mis/Communication: Language and Power in Contemporary Art and Printing Solidarity: Tricontinental Graphics from Cuba, and she is currently working on an exhibition revisiting Frank Bowling’s historic 5+1 exhibition at Stony Brook University.
