EIGHT KOREAN ARTISTS:
The AHL Foundation Visual Arts Award Winners 2004 & 2005
July 7th – July 21st, 2005

Guest Curated by Inhee Iris Moon

Sung-ho choi / Jung Su Han / Ran Hwang / Seok Hee Jung / Jeong Han Kim / Hyun Jean Lee / Aegi Changsuk Park / Jaye Rhee

White Box is pleased to present Eight Korean Artists: The AHL Foundation Visual Arts Award Winners 2004 & 2005, an exhibition highlighting the works of eight Korean artists living & working in the United States. The artists chosen for this exhibition were selected by the AHL Foundation, an organization formed in 2003 to promote the work of Korean artists in the West and to help create a context for their work in today’s competitive contemporary art world.

The AHL Foundation initiated their annual awards for Korean artists in the United States in 2004, granting the winners a monetary award, a chance to exhibit their work and a catalogue to accompany the exhibition. Eight Korean Artists: AHL Foundation Visual Arts Award Winners 2004 & 2005 and the catalogue amply demonstrate the foundation’s efforts to give visibility, access and promote the work of as of yet unaffiliated outstanding artists.

In 2004 the awards focused on younger artists while the 2005 awards, by contrast, were open to a cross-generational group of Korean artists. Jurors were asked to choose the work they considered to have the most merit and deserve to be taken into account by the larger arts communities. Eleanor Heartney has stated: “Awarded artists in both years work in a variety of media and despite the heterogeneity of their approaches, viewers will see several common interests.” The issue of Korean identity surfaces in a number of works. As well as what we might dub a “collage” approach - an interest in bringing together apparently disparate elements to create a new synthesis. At the same time, artists' field of reference varies greatly. Some artists focus on objects in the real world, transforming them into metaphors or symbols of larger forces. Others probe the psyche, and deal with states that exist primarily in the human mind.

The exhibition is sponsored mainly by the AHL Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Additional support received from Korean Cultural Service, Mrs. and Mr. Joong Jin Lee, and Mill Korean Restaurant.