(click for more pictures)

transPOP: Korea Vietnam Remix

PRESS RELEASE       

transPOP: Korea Vietnam Remix
2007.12.18 – 2008.2.29

Opening reception 2007.12.18, 5 pm

General information
BAE Young Whan, Min Hwa CHOI Chul-Hwan, Tiffany CHUNG, Sowon KWON, Lin + Lam (Lana LIN + H. Lan Thao LAM), An-My LÊ, Dinh Q. LÊ, Sandrine LLOUQUET, LEE Yong-baek, Tran LUONG, Ly Hoang LY, Nguyen Manh HUNG, OH Yongseok, Area PARK, Sanghee SONG, Soon-Mi YOO
____
Gallery opening hours  11 am – 8 pm (Closed on Mondays,  January 1 & February 7, 2008)
Docent-led tours  Weekdays 2, 4 pm / Weekends 2, 4, 6 pm, ticket price 2,000 won

Symposium, Film/Video Program & Gallery Tour with Curators
January 18, 2008 & 19, 2008, ARKO Art Center Seminar Hall

Education programs

For more information:  www.arko.or.kr / 02 760 4602, 4605
___________________________________________________

Curators’ Statement
transPOP: Korea Vietnam Remix introduces a dynamic mix of sixteen critically acclaimed artists from Korea, Vietnam, and the United States, signaling an unprecedented engagement with the rich historic and contemporary linkages between Korea and Vietnam.  The featured artworks explore interconnections between the two countries, including the intersections of history, trauma, and contemporary popular culture.  The interactions between Vietnam and Korea span centuries but the exhibition focus lies in their shared history of a highly accelerated modernization process with militarized roots and the Cold War.  During the American War in Vietnam, the Republic of Korea was the second largest foreign military and economic presence in Vietnam behind the United States, with over 300,000 combat forces and approximately 24,000 skilled workers in exchange for substantial U.S. aid.  The financial boon from the involvement in the war played a catalytic role in the development of Korea, laying the foundation for what is now the world’s 12th largest economy.  The legacy of the Cold Wars is evident in the large Korean and Vietnamese diasporic communities in the U.S.  In Vietnam, this accelerated modernity is evident in the breakneck speed of current economic development, as well as its entry into the World Trade Organization.

Since the late nineties, Vietnam and Korea has witnessed a significant development of popular culture, fostering greater cultural proximity locally and abroad. A global phenomenon known as the “Korean Wave,” has popularized Korean television dramas, pop stars, music, films, and fashion through East, Southeast Asia and beyond since the new millennium.  As part of a growing inter-Asian flow of pop culture, the Korean Wave has had a significant impact in Vietnam, spurring numerous joint efforts between the two countries. V-Pop, or Vietnamese pop music and film, has created an explosion of pop stars and media products in Vietnam and overseas. These popular representations of the negotiations between modernity and tradition, in addition to burgeoning consumer culture, suggest new subjectivities. The triangulated relationship between Korea, Vietnam and the U.S. forged through war in Vietnam is also manifest in the increased cross-pollination of cultural influence and exchange.

– Viet Le and Yong Soon Min

Exhibition
The exhibition features 50 works of art by a diverse mix of 16 emerging and established artists from Vietnam and Korea and their respective diasporas in the U.S.  A broad range of approaches are evident, from playful interpretations of popular culture to reflections on violence and its vestiges, to critiques of modernity, the state, and memorialization.

Listening & Reading Lounge/ Chronology
In the midst of artworks, the lounge offers a place to relax and to browse through publications that have informed the interdisciplinary project, as well as to listen to a related mix of K-pop and V-pop since the 1960s. The chronology highlights significant events that reflect the scope of the exhibition.

Symposium
On January 18-19, 2008 ARKO will host a related interdisciplinary symposium focusing on transnational exchanges and the intersections of history, trauma, and popular culture with leading international artists, scholars and organizers connected to Korea, Australia, Japan, Vietnam, and the U.S.  We aim to facilitate creative and critical discourse, as well as extend and historicize current understandings of the transnational circuits of commerce, culture, politics, and desire.  This symposium will also include a curator-led exhibition tour and a showcase of short and feature-length films from Vietnam and its diasporas.

Residencies
Vietnamese and Vietnamese American artists including Tiffany Chung (Ho Chi Minh City), Tran Luong (Hanoi), collaborative team Lin+Lam (New York), and Ly Hoang Ly (Ho Chi Minh City) created new work for the exhibition during a summer 2007 studio residency program in Seoul hosted by Ssamzie Space with lodgings provided by Insa Art Space.  These residencies further fostered international exchange.

Individual Artists
Bae Young Whan (b. 1969, Seoul; based in Korea. BFA, Oriental Painting, Hongik University, Seoul) has been gaining prominence since the mid-1990s with works in a broad range of media and processes.  Bae's work diverges from the didacticism of the Minjungmisool (or "people's art") movement, positioning him as part of a new generation of political artists.  Bae’s work reveals an ongoing interest in the vernacular aesthetics of pop songs and popular culture with mundane yet unexpected materials such as common digestion pills, plastic flowers, and broken glass from soju bottles.  He has exhibited widely in Korea including solo shows at the Kumho Museum, Namu Gallery, Ilju Art House, and Alternative Space Pool.

Min Hwa Choi Chul-hwan (b. 1954, Seoul; based in Korea. Painting, Hongik University) first came to prominence in his association with the Minjung movement, a cultural and political movement struggling for socio-political change that peaked during the mid- to late 1980s.  Min Hwa Choi Chul-hwan’s paintings feature contemporary youth and youth culture derived from television and magazine depictions; figures and gestures are obsessively reworked and remixed to evoke a sense of unsettling posturing and emotional paralysis.  His solo shows in Korea include exhibitions at Munhwa Ilbo Gallery, Alternative Space Pool, Seonam Museum, Gongpyeong Art Center, and Hansun Gallery.

Tiffany Chung  (b. 1969, Danang; based in Vietnam; diasporic artist. BFA, California State University, Long Beach; MFA, University of California, Santa Barbara) is a Vietnamese-American artist based in Saigon. Chung’s pastiche installations (photography, sculptural elements, video) utilizes a pop sensibility to capture the essence of the vibrant city life of an increasingly urban–and urbane–Vietnam: a candy-colored utopia, a hyperreal fantasy.  Her solo exhibitions include Momentum, Mai’s Gallery, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Fifteen Seconds of Fame at the Sugarless Factory, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan; and Beyond Soft Air and Cotton Candy, LMan Gallery, Los Angeles, USA.

Sowon Kwon’s  (b. 1963, Seoul; based in the USA; diasporic artist. BA, University of California, Berkeley; MFA, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn) dongghap (Korean for same birth year) prints and drawings are part of an ongoing series of self-portraits that chart historical and political events constellated by the year of her birth and gasoline.  Kwon has had solo exhibitions at The Kitchen, The Berkeley Art Museum at University of California,  Berkeley; and The Whitney Museum at Philip Morris (now Altria).

Since 2001, the collaborative team Lin + Lam (b. Taiwan and Vietnam respectively; based in USA. Lam: MFA, CalArts; Lin: MFA, Bard College) have produced interdisciplinary projects that examine the ramifications of the past on the current socio-political moment.  They have been researching an archive of 1960s South Vietnamese propaganda films at the Library of Congress, calling into question the policies and politics of nation building.  Their work has been exhibited at venues including the Museum of Modern Art, NY; the Whitney Museum of American Art; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions; and the Arte Nuevo InteractivA’07 Biennial, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Merida, Mexico.

An-My Lê’s (b. 1960, Vietnam; based in US; diasporic artist. MFA, Photography, Yale University) staged photographic images and films draw parallels between the Vietnam War and the Iraq War, and explores the shifting and amorphous boundaries between fact and fantasy, politics and play, horror and banality.  Her solo exhibitions include New Photography 13, MoMA, New York; Small Wars, PS1 Contemporary Art Center/Museum of Modern Art.

Dinh Q. Lê (b. 1968, Ha-Tien; based Vietnam; diasporic artist. BA, University of California, Santa Barbara; MFA, School of Visual Arts, New York.)was born in Vietnam and immigrated to the US in 1978.  Lê’s three-channel video installation, The Farmers and The Helicopters, juxtaposes military helicopters with interviews and images of the Hai-Danh “peace” helicopter, a utopic feat of engineering by a quixotic Vietnamese farmer who built a home-made helicopter for agricultural use.  He has had numerous solo exhibitions including shows at the Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, WA; Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, CA; Asia Society, NY; University Art Museum, Santa Barbara, CA; Photology, Milan, Italy; 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong, China; Houston Center for Photography, Houston, TX.

Lee Young Baek’s (b. 1966, Gimpo; based in Korea. Fine Art, Hongik University;  Painting and Sculpture, Stattliche Akademie der bildende Kunste, Stuttgart, Germany) video installation Angel Soldier subverts the conventions of camouflage with flower power, whereas in Steaming Out, a suited man struggles to breathe and walk underwater, poignantly alluding to the 1997 IMF crisis, when many white-collar "salarymen" in Korea tragically lost their jobs and life savings. He has had solo shows at Arario Gallery, Beijing; +Gallery, Nagoya, Japan; Alternative Space Loop, Seoul; Kuandu Museum of Fine Art, Taipei, Taiwan; Sungkok Museum, Seoul; Gallery Zehentscheuer, Munsingen, Germany; and Sonamu Gallery, Seoul.

Sandrine Llouquet’s (b. 1975, France; based in Vietnam; diasporic artist. Fine Art University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; BFA, EPIAR [International Pilot School of Art and Research] Villa Arson, Nice, France) installation, “Troi Oi!,” (a commonly used Vietnamese expression, signifying dismay, delight, exasperation) presents images that are at once familiar and unsettling–her drawings and animations point at the complexities of memory and representation, jouissance and despair. During the past decade, she has participated in several international exhibitions and events in Asia and Europe.  Since 2000, in conjunction with her personal artwork, she has collaborated with Bertrand Peret to develop and promote contemporary art in Vietnam, forming the Wonderful District project in Ho Chi Minh City in March 2005.

Tran Luong (b. 1960, Vietnam; based in Vietnam. BFA, Hanoi Fine Arts Institute) is an artist and curator based in Hanoi.  Camouflage, asite-specific floor installation, is intended as a critique of propaganda as well as of popular culture in Vietnam and Korea, in which harsh socio-economic realities and political policies are camouflaged by consumerism.  Luong was originally part of the Gang of Five, an influential avant-garde group of painters who came to international attention in the mid 1990s.  He was the Founder and Artistic Director of the Contemporary Art Center, Hanoi (2002-2003).  Solo exhibitions include the Vietnamese Cultural House, Paris, France; Art In General, New York, USA; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca NY, USA; Civitella Ranieri Center, Umbria, Italy; Cave Gallery, Brooklyn NY, USA; Goethe Institute, Hanoi, Vietnam; British Council, Hanoi, Vietnam; Reyum Institute, Phnom Penh, Vietnam.

Ly Hoang Ly’s (b. 1975, Vietnam; based in Vietnam) Tombstones - Milestones (which references the graves of anonymous prisoners in Con Dao isle in Vietnam) and Story of a Portrait (a photograph of the artist taken in the U.S., by a Korean writer, which evokes a wartime portrait) suggest the failure of ideology and the contradictions of peace and war.  Ly has had exhibitions in Vietnam, Thailand, Korea, Japan, the US, and Germany including shows at the Dahlem Museum, Berlin; National Gallery, Bangkok; Chiang Mai Art Museum, Chiang Mai; Blue Space Gallery, Ho Chi Minh City; Zen Gallery, Ho Chi Minh City; Vietnam Contemporary Art Center, Hanoi; 4th Asiatopia, Bangkok/Chiang Mai; 2002 Busan Biennale, Busan; Cave Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Japan Society, New York, NY; Shiga Museum, Shiga.

Nguyen Manh Hung (b. 1976, Vietnam; based in Vietnam. BFA, Hanoi Fine Arts Institute) creates surreal landscapes that playfully deal with issues regarding globalization, industrialization, urbanization and Vietnam’s rapidly changing socio-economic and cultural terrain.  Hung has had numerous group exhibitions and live performances including the Experimental Music and Video Show, Goethe Institute, Hanoi, Vietnam; Out of Context, Huntington Beach Art Center, Huntington Beach, CA, USA; Room-Zoom, Nha San Anh Duc, Hanoi, Vietnam; Saigon Open City; Fete de la musique, L’espace Alliance Francaise, Hanoi, Vietnam; Hue Festival, Hue, Vietnam; TIPAF Taiwan International Performance Art Festival, Kaohsiung, Taipei, Taiwan; NIPAF Nippon International Performance Art Festival, Tokyo/Nagoya/Nagano, Japan; and Window to Asia, Hanoi Contemporary Art Center, Vietnam.

The Drama series by Oh Yong-Seok (b. 1976, Korea; based in Korea. BFA, Painting, University of Suwon) are video montages of landscapes that are comprised of seamlessly integrated smaller segments of video images culled from mass media and popular culture; a commentary on modernity and shifts in temporality within late capitalism.  He has had a solo show at Alternative Space Pool, Seoul and participated in exhibitions and media art festivals internationally including the Asia Video Art Conference, Tokyo, Japan and Bandung, China; Incheon Media Art Festival, Incheon, Korea; Crystallization of Time, MAAP, Singapore, Singapore; Media Art Biennale at Seoul Museum of Art (2006); Shanghai Biennale (2006); Seforma, Yonsei University and Art Center Nabi, Seoul, Korea.

Photographs by Area Park (b. 1971, Pusan; based in Korea. BA, Kyung-il University, Taegu; MFA, Chung-ang University, Seoul) reference the documentary mode but reveal themselves to be fully staged in capturing a society in rapid transformation while revealing the fissures of representation.  He has had solo shows in Seoul at the Chohung Gallery and the Kumho Museum of Art.  His group exhibitions include In & Out: Korea - Japan Young Artists, Konica Plaza, Japan, Tokyo; Standing Point, Back Sang Memorial Hall, Seoul; From the East, Morisita Gallery, Kyoto, Japan; PIP Pinyao International Photography Festival, China; Mio Award Exhibition, Mio Hall, Osaka, Japan; Mongyudowon, Ssamzie Space, Seoul; New Vision, Lightgarden Gallery, Osaka, Japan; Fast Forward, Foto Forum International, Frankfurt, Germany.

Song Sanghee’s (b. 1970, Seoul; based in Korea. BFA, MFA, Painting, Ewha Women's University, Seoul) video, The National Theater, repeatedly reenacts the 1974 accidental death of Yuk Yeong, the wife of Korea’s fifth former president/autocrat Park Jung-hee during an assassination attempt on his life. She has had solo shows at Insa Art Center, Seoul; Freespace PRAHA, Sapporo, Japan; Alternative Space Pool, Seoul; Gallery ICON, Seoul.  Her group exhibitions include Global Feminisms, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn NY, USA; Artspectrum 2006, Leeum Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea; Stepping Across Borders, Hokkaido Museum of Art, Sapporo, Japan; Six Contemporary Artists from Korea, Kunstcentret Silkeborg, Denmark; The Battle of Visions: Critical Art in Korea, Kunsthalle Darmstadt, Darmstadt Germany.  Song has also participated in biennales in Sao Paulo (2006), Busan (2004), and Gwangju (2006).

Ssitkim: talking to the dead, an experimental documentaryby Soon Mi Yoo (b. 1962, Seoul; based in U.S; diasporic artist. MA, German Literature, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea; MFA, Photography, Massachusetts College of Art) is a poetic, evocative exploration of loss and the aftermath of atrocities committed by Korean soldiers in a Vietnamese village during the Vietnam War.  Yoo’s film and video work has been screened at the London Film Festival, Images Festival, Oberhausen Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Pacific Film Archive, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Flaherty Seminar, Academie Schloss Solitude, Seattle International Film Festival, Hawaii International Film Festival, and the Cinema du Reel Film Festival at the Centre Georges Pompidou. 

Curators’ Bios
Both Yong Soon Min and Viet Le are US-based artists and independent curators. Min's curatorial projects in Korea include, THERE: Sites of Korean Diaspora, an exhibition of the 2002 Gwangju Biennale framed around five international cities that included 24 artists and a program of 34 film and video works.  Min has an MFA from the University of California, Berkeley and is currently Professor of Studio Art at the University of California, Irvine.  Le has organized Vietnamese diaspora-related exhibitions and events, most notably, the Charlie Don’t Surf! exhibition at the International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art (Centre A Gallery) in Vancouver.  Le received his MFA from University of California, Irvine and is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Southern California in American Studies & Ethnicity.  In September 2007, they curated humor us, a large-scale exhibition and event series on Asian American art for the Los Angeles Municipal Gallery at Barnsdall Art Park (www.humorus.net).