Kyungah Ham
Kyungah Ham’s sculptures, videos and embroidered works delve into the realm of the socio-political – questioning the labor, politics, nationhood, social identity and freedom of information in her native Korea. She explores her nation’s history as a provocateur, subtly building layers of meaning with each step in her process to kindle an enduring political discourse. Her embroidered works embody an approach initiated by Ham in 2008. Here, she collects information available in South Korea – ranging from images of Western abstract paintings to South Korean slang – and, through an intermediary, sends them as a blueprint to be embroidered in North Korea. Through the works, she extends the offer of authorship to the embroiderers, as they must occasionally alter the works due to censorship. On the surface, the works are luminous and poetic, but the real material lies in the process of information and communication within.
Kyungah Ham (b. 1966, Seoul) received her BFA from the Seoul National University and MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York. Upcoming exhibition: carlier | gebauer, Madrid. She has participated in exhibitions in South Korea and internationally, including at the Kunstmuseum Bonn; Kunsthalle Düsseldorf; Charlottenborg Exhibition Hall, Copenhagen, Denmark; and the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna, Austria. Her work can be found in numerous public collections, among them, Victoria & Albert Museum; Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul; MMCA, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea; and the Seoul Museum of Art.
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Exhibitions at carlier | gebauer
- 06/20 Hélène Delprat / Cecilia Edefalk / Asta Gröting / Kyungah Ham / Pakui Hardware / Iman Issa / Guillaume Leblon / Julie Mehretu / Laure Prouvost / Thomas Schütte, Basel By Berlin
- 02/20 Sebastián Díaz Morales / Hélène Delprat / Michel François / Cecilia Edefalk / Vincent Gicquel / Paul Graham / Dor Guez / Kyungah Ham / Tarik Kiswanson / Julie Mehretu / Caroline Mesquita / Richard Mosse / Oscar Muñoz / Paul Pfeiffer / Laure Prouvost / Edi Rama / Erik Schmidt / Nida Sinnokrot / Thomas Schütte / Mark Wallinger, So what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?
- 06/19 Kyungah Ham, Abstract, Poetry Weapon / Soccer Paintings by soccer ball bouncing over Crocodile River
- 06/17 Kyungah Ham
Biography
Texts
Publications
Kyungah Ham
PHANTOM FOOTSTEPS
Kukje Gallery, Seoul, 2015
ISBN: 9788-9922-3381-1
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