June 26–July 29 | Opening Reception: Wednesday, June 26, 3–5 p.m.
First Floor Galleries and the Angela Fowler Memorial Gallery, Chautauqua Institution,
Chautauqua , NY
Curated by Erika Diamond, assistant director of VACI Galleries, this exhibition features work by contemporary artists Sonya Clark, April D. Felipe, Roberto Lugo, Jiha Moon and Wendy Red Star. These artists who work in photography, sculpture and painting, reconfigure symbols and archetypes related to their cultural heritage. Their works rely on the reconstruction of familiar objects and tropes to simultaneously deconstruct assumptions around historical narratives, complicating not only their personal and cultural identity, but the idea of representation in art.
April 20 – May 25, 2019
Super Future Kid, Jennifer Lefort, Jiha Moon, Kiyoshi Kaneshiro
There is something really great about bright color. It reminds me of candy. Delicious sugary tart confections; the kind with no expiration date, each chew something decadent. Deeply ground into your molars. You just know it’s wreaking havoc in so many different ways but nothing is as satisfying as that moment. The repercussions don’t exist. After the bag is empty, the box unshakeable…then it counts. That big undeniably gargantuan ah oh. I took the first bite and the last bite, and everything in between. I get it now. It’s going to hurt. Call it my chunk of the rock. The American dream presented in high fructose corn syrup. The one I can afford. After all, it only counts if you take a big piece.
"Jiha Moon is in a perpetual state of “other” as she mines numerous histories and cultures, distilling them into rascally works of art. There is no filter, just a quirky mix matching flurry of references. Mischievousness, rebelliousness, Jiha is the Bart Simpson of our scene and she perfectly exemplifies the new Atlanta.” - Daniel Fuller, Curator, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center
Featuring over 50 works by multi-media artist Jiha Moon (Korean, Born 1973), this publication examines the rich cultural context in which the artist works. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Moon harvests cultural elements native to Korea, Japan, and China and then unites them with Western elements to investigate the multi-faceted nature of our current global identity as influenced by popular culture, technology, racial perceptions, and folklore. Moon blurs the lines between Western and Eastern identified iconography such as the characters from the online game Angry Birds and smart phone Emojis. They float alongside Asian tigers, Aztec warriors, and Indian gods in compositions that appear both familiar and foreign, ancient and modern.
Binding: hardcover Length: 96 pages
Dimensions: 11" x 7"
