Where Serpents Change Their Skin : Solo Exhibition
November 9 - extended through February 2, 2019
Alan Avery Art Company
Atlanta, GA
Artadia at NADA Miami Beach: Jiha Moon (Atlanta 2016)
Ice Palace Studios
Booth 8.08
December 7-10, 2017
"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
Jiha Moon: Double Welcome, Most Everyone's Mad Here Catalog
Binding: hardcover
Length: 96 pages
Dimensions: 11" x 7"
Future Fossil, Other Vessel - The Brooklyn Rail, June 2016
A Whisper of Where it Came From
MARCH 11 – JULY 24, 2016
KEMPER MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI
Convene
MARCH 15 – MAY 22, 2016
NERMAN MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, OVERLAND PARK, KANSAS
In 2016 we’re trying to make sense of our monuments. Broken monuments, unfaithful monuments. Bloated monuments, impaired monuments. Monuments erasing centuries of history, strangely self-satisfying Facebook monuments flashing solidarity with victims of some far-off tragedy. On May 10, 2016, Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance (INR) announced the removal and relocation of nearly 500 Soviet monuments. Debates continue to flare across the southern United States over the elimination of Confederate flags and statues like the life-size one of a staunch confederate soldier in the Mason-Dixon border city of Rockville, Maryland.
Double Welcome, Most Everyone’s Mad Here
Tour Schedule
Taubman Museum of Art Roanoke, VA
www.taubmanmuseum.org
May 2 – September 20, 2015
Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art
October 24 – December 5, 2015
Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
Kalamazoo, MI
www.kiarts.org
December 19, 2015 – March 6, 2016
Salina Art Center
Salina, KS
www.salinaartcenter.org
April 6 – June 12, 2016
Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art Auburn University
Auburn, AL
http://jcsm.auburn.edu
January 21 – April 30, 2017
Richard E. Peeler Art Center DePauw University
Greencastle, IN
www.depauw.edu/arts/peeler/
August 25 – October 29, 2017
Tarble Arts Center Eastern Illinois University
Charleston, IL
www.eiu.edu/tarble
November 18, 2017 – February 4, 2018
American University Art Museum
Washington, DC
www.american.edu/cas/museum/
March 31 – May 20, 2018
The Mennello Museum of American Art
Orlando, FL
www.mennellomuseum.org
June 22 – August 12, 2018
Crisp-Ellert Art Museum
Flagler College St.
Augustine, FL
www.flagler.edu/news-events/crisp-ellert-art-museum/
September 1 – October 27, 2018
Upcoming Shows
Double Welcome, Most Everyone’s Mad Here
October 24 – December 5, 2015
Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art
161 Calhoun Street Charleston, SC 29424
Public Opening Reception
Friday, October 23, 6:30 – 8PM
Artist Talk and Gallery Walk-through
Saturday, October 24, 2PM
The Halsey Institute is pleased to present an exhibition featuring new works by multi-media artist Jiha Moon (Korean, Born 1973). 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. Featuring over fifty works, Moon blurs the lines between Western and Eastern identified iconography such as the characters from the online game Angry Birds© and smart phone Emojis which float alongside Asian tigers and Indian gods, in compositions that appear both familiar and foreign simultaneously.
Moon’s witty and ironic work explores how Westerners perceive other cultures and how perceived foreigners see the West. Korean born, now living in the United States, Moon asks the pertinent question, “Why do people love foreign stuff so much? When we travel to other countries, explore different cultures, and meet with new people, we tend to fall in love with things that are not our own. People have a soft spot for foreign things. The world is so interconnected nowadays, how can you even tell where someone or something ‘comes from’ anymore?” In her work, Moon acts in the role of a traveler, and explores the notion that identity is not beholden to geographic location.
Honoring traditional Asian arts through her use of Hanji paper, Korean silk, and calligraphic brushstrokes, throughout the exhibition she plays with iconography and symbols that have been classified as “foreign” such as blue willow china patterns, fortune cookies (which originated in California but are identified as Chinese), Korean fans, and floating dragons and intermingles them with references to Pop and southern folk art. Her use of the peach identified in Chinese mythology as a symbol of immortality is also a nod to her home state of Georgia’s mascot, the “Georgia Peach.” Moon transforms a traditional Korean fashion accessory called “Norigae” into endearing quirky manifestations of various personalities, with such names as Gloria and Rachel whose hair is interwoven with eclectic items such as children’s plastic barrettes or Native American beaded dolls. Her misshapen and whimsical ceramics reference southern folk art face jugs yet are painted in traditional Asian ceramic glazes and motifs. At the heart of the exhibition, Moon presents an installation featuring perceived kitschy elements of Asian home décor: low wooden tables and silk embroidered pillows placed on Japanese tatami mats. Displayed on the various surfaces are her unconventional ceramic works reflecting her interest in the “beautiful awkward” in which she makes reference to a tourist’s desire to collect foreign and exotic elements to beautify their houses back home.
At first glance, Jiha Moon’s work appears as a mash-up of high-and-low brow cultural references. Upon further inspection, slyly ironic and humorous references emerge that are satirically filtered by the artist, who reminds us that our preconceived notion of “others” is not a true manifestation of actual identity.