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| Installation view of Mina Cheon's exhibition, "Dreaming Unification: Protest Peace," at Ethan Cohen Gallery in New York / Courtesy of the artist and Ethan Cohen Gallery |
By Kwon Mee-yoo
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| Artist Mina Cheon |
While the two Koreas remain physically divided, citizens of many other countries in the world, including the United States, are experiencing increasing political and social divisions. This increasing polarization has been a source of inspiration for Cheon, who hopes to explore the concepts of unification and peace through her projects.
"With the world being so divided, culturally, economically, religiously, ideologically, politically… and in my case, my native country having been divided for 70 years, although the Korean people have been together for 5,000 years, a Korean with global concerns should also be practicing art in manners that reflect these divided worlds and countries. As such, so should the artist in practice. I practice and make art as both South Korean Mina Cheon and North Korean Kim Il-soon, my art persona," Cheon said during an interview with The Korea Times.
Cheon is known for her "Polipop" works, inspired by Pop art and Social Realism, focusing on awareness about North Korea and global peace projects.
"Pop art is eye-catching and more accessible, it is useful as an art language to handle serious political themes and as a social commentary," she said.
The artist experienced life in the East and the West growing up as her father worked as a cultural attache for the Korean Embassy in different countries. Living abroad allowed her to notice major differences in the views of Koreans and those in other nations surrounding the topic of the Korean War and its aftermath.
"The remarkable difference between the Korean perspective and the world's perspective calls for a cultural comparative. There was a huge gap between the Korean reality and the media's spin on the country. There was a feeling that the world was clueless to the multi-generational trauma of the effects of colonization, war, and separation," the artist said.
A trip to Mount Geumgang in North Korea as a tourist back in 2004 dramatically shaped Cheon's work.
"I remember distinctly traveling through the DMZ into North Korea in a bus with large glass windows but no curtains, so that the North Koreans could see us clearly from outside. The feeling of being monitored was intense, all our lenses and recording equipment were checked, we all had to wear badges declaring our occupation, mine being 'housewife,'" Cheon recalled.
While her experience in North Korea was shaped by strict surveillance and the rigid tourist program, Cheon also found, through interacting with North Koreans, that they were just as Korean as those you see every day in South Korea, which led her to create her North Korean art persona.
"After visiting North Korea in 2004, I started making work about the idea of 'Miss Kim,' as a dedication to all the North Korean women whom I wanted to pay attention to, to the surname Kim, my mother's last name, the many Korean Kims in both Koreas, and the world, as well as the Kim family dynasty of North Korea," Cheon explained.
She started to explore the identity of a North Korean artist who dreams. Only in her dreams, can she dream of liberation and beyond the rigidity of the government.
"Kim Il-soon is a social realist painter, naval commander, farmer, and mother of two, married to the state as well as a human being. She is also a cosmopolitan North Korean who knows how to paint abstraction in her dreams. Through her unconscious state, she is the mother ("eomma") of unification. She exists as an alternative form for all the political dealings and mishaps that are confounded by the father 'dear leaders' of the world, the massive culture of hatred and war of words and missiles that are threatening peace on earth."
She even sent USB sticks containing videos of Kim Il-soon's contemporary art lessons into North Korea as part of the project.
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| Installation view of Mina Cheon's exhibition, "Dreaming Unification: Protest Peace," at the Ethan Cohen Gallery in New York, featuring a Korean Unification flag painting series / Courtesy of the artist and Ethan Cohen Gallery |
The main body of work in this exhibition is the, "Dreaming Unification: Protest Peace aka Flag Figuration," painting series, which is inspired by the Korean Unification Flag. This flag shows the Korean Peninsula in blue against a white background and is used when the two Koreas participate as one team in sporting events.
"In painting, (Kim Il-soon) started out with social realism, then moved into more pop art and abstract expressionism. It keeps evolving because she is dreaming of all the different ways in which she could break way from the propaganda style allowed in North Korea," Cheon said.
The paintings were created with a custom-made New International Klein Blue, or Yves Klein Blue, color and with the help of other tools and materials, such as stencils, spray paints and "sumi" ink.
"Eventually in the series you see now, she is dreaming so deeply and yearning for unification and global peace. It can't be quiet any more. It has to be bold, using street art-style graffiti and tagging. She's at the very brink," Cheon explained.
"It also has 'sumi' ink mixed with spray paint. In North Korea, 'Chosunhwa' is the most revered style, mixing an Oriental painting style with propaganda. Combining the very historic 'sumi' ink medium and very cosmopolitan Western tagging, spray paints, stencils, and mixing them together, confronts the differences between the East and the West. That's where she's at in this dream world now, hoping to overcome the world that's divided."
The artist said the work was well-received in the U.S., as the country is politically divided right now.
Cheon said conflict over there echoes conflict over here, and this fact is why peace is so important.
"What happens over there matters to what happens here, and vice versa. We can no longer look at it from a single perspective, but have to look at the multilateral effects. The tremendous pressure, danger and threat we had with the last [Trump] administration made it so real when I talked about Korea and the divided Koreas. Americans really felt division for the first time," she said, adding how busy she was last year being asked to talk about unification and reconciliation.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the exhibit can only be viewed by visitors with a reservation. The show has been extended for a month from its original Jan. 30 closing day.
"Everything is very slow as people have been coming in by appointment only and can only stay for about 30 minutes. (The gallery has) been having social media rollouts, showing one piece at a time with explanations, and sharing the exhibition in part, not just everything at once," Cheon said. "We are taking it slow, so extending it for one more month makes sense. We want more people to have an opportunity to see it."
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| "Eat Chocopie Together" project by Mina Cheon / Courtesy of the artist |
Cheon is also taking part in the inaugural Asia Society Triennial, with her "Eat Chocopie Together" project. The triennial has been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so Cheon launched a website to allow users to share Choco Pies with friends, families and loved ones virtually.
"I was supposed to be at the Lincoln Center part of the triennial with a Choco Pie installation in the shape of the Korean peninsula at the opening, but everything got postponed. So we made eatchocopietogether.com, an interactive website through which every interaction raised money," she said.
In the past, at art events such as at the Busan Biennale in 2018, Cheon installed 100,000 Choco Pies, donated by Orion, for visitors to take and eat on site. However, the online version offered five different Choco Pie designs ― love, peace, share, eat and unite ― and visitors could choose one and send it virtually to their loved ones. Each Choco Pie sent and received raised money for the Korean American Community Foundation's COVID-19 Community Action Fund, which achieved its intended goal in a month.
"My installation is going to be up on at the Asia Society Museum from March 16, the second part of the triennial, and the Choco Pies are supposed to be shown towards the end in June. ... The flag paintings you see at the Ethan Cohen Gallery will also be shown at the Asia Society Museum," the artist said.
Cheon turned the COVID-19 crisis into an opportunity, presenting her project online as an immediate response to the pandemic situation. She said making people feel connected when we are having to be socially distanced was key to her artistic interactions with the community.
"Because I did a [virtual 'Eat Chocopie Together'] project earlier on, it set an example for how to use online platforms to make people actually connect. I think that was the starting point of where I was asked to talk about my work in relation to the U.S.," the artist said.
"When dealing with North Korean issues, the relationship between the two Koreas, and advocacy for unification, reconciliation, and cooperation, doing advocacy and awareness helps in the promotion of global peace in general."
"As there were anti-war protests, this is a kind of new peace 'protest art', and I believe contemporary artists today have become not only agents of change but 'agitators' for change. So as 'Pop' as my work can be, there is a strong element of political protest that to some is quite literal, and for others subliminal. I think it is literal and very serious, but some people find the work to be comic relief, or they feel that my work is a simple satirical response. I am not making work that is one-dimensional, and I think it is beyond political satire."
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