Translate into Mother Tongue
2013
Installation view
DOOSAN Gallery Seoul is pleased to present DOOSAN Curator Workshop Exhibition Translate into Mother Tongue, from January 17 to February 14, 2013.
DOOSAN Curator Workshop is a professional nurturing program which is devoted to supporting promising new curators and developing Korean contemporary art. The program selects three new curators every year, and holds regular workshops and seminars, and an opportunity for them to co-organize an exhibition at the DOOSAN Gallery. The 2nd DOOSAN Curator Workshop in 2012, Michelle Dayeong Choi, Michelle Soyoung Kim and Giselle Minhwa Yun were selected. Various workshops and seminars took place throughout one year, and an exhibition co-organized by the three curators will be opened in January and July, 2013, jointly at DOOSAN Gallery in Seoul and New York.
The exhibition Translate into Mother Tongue began by looking into the art world of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951-1982), a Korean born American artist based in San Francisco in U.S in late 20th century. Translate into Mother Tongue attempted to cross the 30 years between Cha's life and today, and explore the sustainable meaning in questions cast by Cha through her work. The exhibition also shed light on the fact that Cha's multi-faceted work has been explored for a number of generations and expanded beyond specific nationality and language, by people working in various schools including literature, art, music and theater.
The stories about history, language and women, as well as other unidentifiable origin are written through Cha's body in her work, and ask how art reflects our perception of the world as members of the contemporary globalized society. This in turn asks through what artistic language we can perceive and reflect the world, as we live in between the boundaries of diverse cultures, languages, histories and identities. This question has been translated and reiterated through three curators and eight participating artists (Hong Goo Kang, Young Gle Kim, Young Eun Keem, Sasa Shun, Sanghee Song, Miyeon Lee, Ji Hyun Jung, Kichang Choi). Through this process, the intention was to rediscover the artistic language of our times.