Synthetic Snow and 100 Degree Heat
No one truly expects to find snow upon arriving in Los Angeles and those who remember it are taunted by its synthetic foil.
In engineering space, we use that which we know to recreate familiar settings–emotionally present in both at once. In AA|LA’s current group show, It’s Snowing in L.A., artists Dahn Gim, Sejin Hyun, Kang Seung Lee, Haena Yoo, Minha Park, and Min ha Park — all of whom have lived in Korea and Los Angeles — consider existing in two places at once, the simultaneity of culture, and the duality of identity. Curated by Amy Kahng and Mary McGuire, the show embraces the disparity and linkages between Korean culture and that of Los Angeles.
This is not a show about identity, as much as it is about configuring how the body navigates a space thus creating a personal exploration of itself. The self is not rigid and fractured by distance, but it is maintained by its effort to exist simultaneously. “You don’t live at one moment in one place but in two places all the time; even when I’m here, there’s simultaneity going on because I’m living in two places at the same time emotionally,” says artist Kang Seung Lee.
Similarly, painter Min ha Park remembers the light of each city. In her three paintings for the show, Park considers the circumstances under which light appears the same for different reasons. From the density of smog, waves breaking overhead and the pulsating glare of nightclubs, the lighting bares uncanny resemblance to itself. “Now that I’ve experienced the light here, I can almost recreate that sense back in my studio in Seoul because I can remember what it looks like in this light. Now I’m having a hard time adjusting to painting under fluorescent light,” says Park of the two cities.
Having just spent time in Seoul, curators Kahng and McGuire became enamored of its art community, especially impacted by a swath of galleries and spaces run by young people. In meeting artists that split their time between Seoul and L.A., Kahng and McGuire considered the process of “Fabricating or constructing your sense of place” as transnational artists. Like Sejin Hyun’s replication of a scene from an IKEA catalogue in “Borrowing Art from IKEA”, the process of re-engineering familiar spaces can be undeviating and perfunctory.
“‘I’m a foreigner everywhere’ is the mentality that I have now, and it took me a while to embrace that,” says artist Dahn Gim — born in Busan and raised primarily in Toronto. “Being Korean and growing up in Western culture, my work doesn’t directly talk about identity politics but it’s a very natural thing for the viewer to realize.” Gim’s sound sculpture “Not so Muffled” converts a muffler into an unfamiliar body of pliant leather and soft voices mimicking an automotive “vroom”. From Busan to Los Angeles presides an inpatient driving culture, cushioned for Gim by the unmatched civility of Canadian drivers. Awash in a myriad of stereotypes for Asian women and car culture, Gim’s sculpture emancipates the object’s humor in lieu of its stereotypes; a joke made for the femme and not at her expense.
Artists Haena Yoo and Kang Seung Lee pay tribute to L.A.’s contentious history of racialized violence in their pieces. Considering the lasting impact of the ’92 riots, Lee’s two works from a series called “Leave of Absence” consist of images by photojournalists from the riots, digitally depopulated and rendered in graphite by the artist. In Yoo’s “Under Construction”, scenes from the 2012 documentary “Clash of Colors” meld with the artist’s own footage of Koreatown today. “I wanted to see the contrast at that time of the racial tension and how people normally see Koreatown, finding the historical meaning of it. Sometimes the footage converged but sometimes it collapsed in the video piece,” says Yoo. Having both grown up at least in part in Korea, Yoo and Lee remember a different narrative about the riots. Lee recalls how starkly the violence of the riots appeared in Korean media. Upon moving to Los Angeles it became evident how a self-proclaimed beacon for diversity and multiculturalism still suffered from entrenched segregation.
It’s Snowing in L.A,, much like Minha Park’s video, “A Story of Elusive Snow”, does not seek the union of two places, nor even their center, but instead explores what it means to exist in both; accepting fragmented space cohesively as though it were one mind that procured two. Where snow is sought, L.A. seeps rain– though, the city’s memory harbors an immigrant’s dreams of wintry nights. No one truly expects to find snow in L.A., but the memory of it is enough.
A closing reception featuring readings by L.A.-based writers Maurene Goo, Derek Kirk Kim, Steph Cha, and Saehee Cho will be held at AA|LA on Saturday, July 14th. The evening will include a launch of their exhibition catalogue featuring interviews with each of the participating artists.
