This Atlanta-based painter and ceramicist, who was born in South Korea in 1973 and has lived in the U.S. for two decades, has developed a strikingly varied vocabulary of forms—elegant, cute, grotesque, and all of the above. “Stranger Yellow,” the title of her appealing, clamorous new show, refers to the color that dominates the works on view, as well as to racist, xenophobic, and sexualized Asian stereotypes and the related dynamics of estrangement and assimilation. Her brightly patterned paintings on hanji (Korean mulberry paper) and her delightfully perverse glazed sculptures mingle images of bananas, fortune cookies, and breasts with botanical motifs and fantastic creatures drawn from Korean folklore, augmented by flowing passages of abstract brushstrokes. The artist’s seamless transition between mediums and her command of symbolic excess make for an absorbing and visually energetic exhibition.
Jiha Moon, Peach Mask III. Courtesy the artist and AEIVA.
One of the most perplexing questions for museums—and their audiences—during the pandemic is whether there is a difference between “to see” and “to view.” Historically, we “see” exhibitions; visit museums and galleries; connect with artists in their studios. Today, we’re more likely to view them: virtual tours, livestreamed lectures and events, images and reviews.
Korean American artist Jiha Moon stages “Out Loud” with Atlanta Contemporary to give a voice to Asian women artists.
By Felicia Feaster, For the AJC May 11, 2021
The Atlanta spa shootings that left eight dead were a shock for many residents who consider Atlanta an accepting, diverse, multicultural community where civil rights are the lingua franca.
“I didn’t believe this happened in Atlanta” says Koren American artist and Doraville resident Jiha Moon, who started clutching a can of pepper spray in her pocket riding MARTA to her teaching job at Georgia State University following the rising tide of violence against Asians.
The work of Jiha Moon and Stephanie H. Shih is both aesthetic and political, a commentary on assimilation as a process in which one’s national origin is not forgotten or erased.
by John Yau June 27, 2020
Something I noticed after the country went into quarantine was that people began to post pictures on their social media platforms of the foods they were making at home. For a while, many people baked sourdough loaves. I saw lots of ethnic food as well as views of elaborate meals, even though no one was coming to dinner.
I also noticed that little attention was paid in the photos to the plates and platters on which the food was served. It got me thinking: The vessel is integral to the history of ceramics. When we think of food, we might not care what delivers it to the table, but when we think of ceramics, we might wish that no food or beverage ever dirtied it.
Until the 1950s, ceramics was a genre connected primarily with function, and rarely accepted as fine art. Peter Voulkos is widely considered the first ceramic artist to break down the barrier separating the functional with the purely aesthetic object. Voulkos’s breakthrough, which has been well documented, took place during the 1950s, and culminated in his 1959 exhibition of huge ceramic sculptures at the Landau Gallery in Los Angeles.
Voulkos was invited to teach at the Los Angeles County Art Institute (now Otis College of Art and Design) in 1954. He remained there until his controversial Landau Gallery show, at which point he took a teaching position at UC Berkeley. Voulkos’s students at Otis included John Mason and Ken Price, both of whom gained a reputation for their ceramic sculptures. Robert Arneson, who was not Voulkos’s student, was nonetheless changed by his encounter with the latter’s work.
This thoughtfully curated exhibition is evidence that much compelling and adventurous art is indeed being produced all around the country. by Gregory Volk March 7, 2020
BENTONVILLE, Arkansas — A follow up to the 2014-15 survey show State of the Art, State of the Art 2020 at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and its new non-collecting sister site, the Momentary, is intended to be “a cross-section of artists working today.”
Organized by Momentary and Crystal Bridges curator Lauren Haynes, with Crystal Bridges associate curators Alejo Benedetti and Allison Glenn, it includes 61 artists whose works span painting, sculpture, photography, performance, video, digital media, textiles, and ceramics. It is similar in scale, intent, and ambition to, say, the Whitney Biennial. That’s where things get interesting. For all its equity and diversity, the last Whitney Biennial still focused squarely on East and West Coast artists, especially those from New York and Los Angeles (John Yau provided a helpful by-the-numbers analysis).
