Commodity & Ideology Part I

June 1-June 30, 2017

Queens College Klapper Hall Art Gallery

Korea Art Forum (KAF) is pleased to announce the opening of Commodity & Ideology, Part I on June 3, 2017, at the Klapper Hall Art Gallery of Queens College. This exhibition, curated by Heng-Gil Han, explores the idea of urban streets and public places as spaces of and/or for expression and production. Commodity & Ideology weaves a dynamic visual dialogue between works by artists from Pyongyang, New York, Seoul, and Beijing, and serves as a metaphor for a peaceful relationship with North Korea.

Korea Art Forum is launching a pilot artist exchange program in New York City this summer. We will host three promising North Korean artists—Song Gwang Hong, Myong Un Kim, and Ryong Kim—and feature their work in our Commodity & Ideology exhibition. Additional exhibition artists include Daniel Bajar, Susan Jahoda, Hong Seon Jang, Naomi Kuo, Jaewook Lee, Zaun Lee, and Ella Yang from New York; Meekyung Kim, Jun Michael Park, and Yongsun Suh from Seoul, South Korea; and Shen Yang from Beijing, China.

Commodity & Ideology is a process-based exhibition. Participating artists have been invited to produce work in outdoor public spaces throughout New York City such as Central Park, Liberty Island, and other places of significance. The newly produced artworks will be added to the exhibition as they are created.

The exhibition attempts to fulfill the idea of contemporary art that is open, inclusive, and equal to all images. Works in the exhibition will be diverse in medium, scale, genre, and style and will include oil painting, ink painting, drawing, photography, and text-based art. Some works will be figurative others abstract. The exhibition will also include object- and performance-based art. The heterogeneous nature of Commodity & Ideology invites productive collisions between different forms of art.

The show collects work that represents urban landscapes—scenes of streets, people, architecture, parks, and plazas. These landscapes provide audiences with an increased awareness of the intrinsic implications of the social and/or political conditions that are embedded in built environments and cityscapes. 

For more information, please contact Heng-Gil Han at 347-840-1142 or hhan@kafny.org.