Charged_Fukazawa Lee Mendoza Woo_AHL June 2023 by Sammy Lee

CHARGED

Keiko Fukazawa Sammy Seung-min Lee Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza Joo Woo Curated by Hyewon Yi

Table of Contents

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Foreword Hyewon Yi Being in America Lilly Wei Charged at the AHL Foundation Jonathan Goodman A Conversation Before the Opening Hyewon Yi Checklist of the Exhibition About the Artists Acknowledgments

Foreword

In Charged, four Asian American women artists — Keiko Fukazawa, Sammy Seung-min Lee, Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza, and Joo Woo — entice the viewer with intricately refined craftsmanship charged with sociopolitical and cross-cultural significance. Commenting on mass shootings rooted in US gun culture, living the Korean diaspora experience, the racist legacy of colonialism, and racial injustice against Asians, among other issues, the exhibition demonstrates disciplined art practice through a limited color palette of predominantly red and white. The artists share an affinity for simulacra, extending critical discussion absent the ready-made objects that are their central subjects: guns cast in porcelain, food bowls molded of hanji paper, a replica of a rice bag, and seemingly ordinary wallpaper. These ghostly objects and trompe l’oeil may seduce viewers with their beauty, but upon further examination lead to deeper engagement. The works in this exhibition also have in common references to Asian cultural identity, whether through the artist’s choice of medium or the content expressed, as each artist nods to her native traditions and diasporic life sharing their deep desire to investigate their cultural identities through the experiences of the personal, communal, and historical. Curated by Hyewon Yi

Being in America Lilly Wei

the exhibition addresses subject matter that deals with controversial, even combustible issues, collectively creating a force field in which each artist’s work activates the others to shape a conversation from multiple points of view, made more profound in the aggregate. The word “charged” is well-chosen, all its meanings apt: to designate, to impose a task, a duty; to fire up, excite, incite, to energize; to be plugged in, to be fully loaded; to be blamed, accused—and more. The artists were born and raised in Korea, Japan, and the Philippines, and are from different generations. They have also all lived in the United States (currently based in California, Colorado, and Florida) for a good part of their lives. Their voices are individual, but they draw from personal experiences and issues that have mattered deeply to them, their work steeped in autobiography, explicitly or implicitly. The stories they tell are those of immigrants, a cross-section of what it means to make a life in a new land, a place that can often seem strange, hostile, difficult, but also welcoming, clarifying, liberating. Fukazawa, Woo, Lee, and Cobarrubias Mendoza employ a gamut of media, like most artists today, and have in common those integral to a classic East Asian vocabulary—paper, textiles, ink, and ceramics—but they are also talented painters,

“Charged,” curated by Hyewon Yi, brings together Keiko Fukazawa, Joo Yeon Woo, Sammy Seungmin Lee, and Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza, a quartet of remarkable artists with East Asian roots, to New York’s Harlem and the AHL Foundation. While Harlem has been the location for several contemporary galleries in recent years in addition to being the longtime home of the Studio Museum (which has launched the careers of innumerable Black artists), it is still somewhat of an outlier and rare to see an institution that focuses on artists of Korean descent located there. But that, to me, is progress, another instance of cultural diversity and exchange. And it might be noted that while “Charged” assumes the common denominators that connect these artists, it is also about cultural diversity, since to be East Asian, not to mention South Asian, is to be from disparate cultures and histories, despite proximity and centuries, even millennia of interaction with each other. Asians know this (and know they need to forge new relationships with each other) but too often, even now, we are thought to be interchangeable by those who are not Asian, who have little awareness of the deep divides of the past, of the conflicts and complexities of the histories that have shaped that great swath of the world. As the title “Charged” tantalizingly promises, 8

changing messages for us to decode, perhaps her version of K-Pop, the past viewed through the lens of the present. Filipino American Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza’s critique is the reverse, although she also reviews the past, her installation of interrelated objects taking aim at American imperialism and racism in the Philippines, including a brutally invasive war that began at the turn of the 20th century that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Filipino civilians. Each object pointedly shows how the people of the Philippines were portrayed as savages, subhumans, thereby justifying the barbaric treatment they endured under American occupation that is all too familiar as a tactic of war. It includes If These Walls Could Talk, a nearly to scale corner section of a pleasant colonial style room—until the pattern of its wallpaper is looked at more closely, with its demeaning depictions of Filipinos, driving her point forcefully home. Sammy Seung-min Lee is also Korean American and is represented by an elegant white scroll that crosses almost the entirety of one wall. A bas-relief of sorts cast in hanji (mulberry paper), it resembles a frieze, and is embedded at intervals with traditional Korean serving dishes and utensils. It is part of a long-term participatory project in which the artist invited others to arrange the settings of this surrogate communal table and to share their stories, a video installed nearby briefly explaining the project. At the core of A Very Proper Table Setting is the idea of inclusion and hospitality, Lee doing double duty: the artist acts as the host; the person, an immigrant, is also the guest. The question that hovers over this work, and to a degree, all the others, seems to be: what constitutes our responsibility to those seeking inclusion and security and what is their responsibility to us? It is a question that is so tragically pressing today, as millions upon millions have been displaced and in need of asylum and a place to call home, their lives upended, literally shattered, too often due to political, social, economic, and environmental factors beyond their control. Art can be charged with asking questions, but it is up to us to find the answers.

draftspersons, videographers, photographers, and installation and performance artists. It might be noted that the materials they prize and highlight here are often categorized as craft in the West, once considered of lesser importance, and relegated to women and domestic production. Challenged, especially by women artists everywhere, that valuation has been amended, at least in part. The practice of every artist is unique, as it is here, but there are vital points of convergence. All four have spent their formative years in their countries of birth and, despite their years of residence in the United States, they no doubt share a sense of in-betweenness, of straddling two worlds, two cultures, the width of that divide depending upon personal circumstances and temperament. But I also think that because of the widespread, incessant movement of people throughout the world--for reasons both hopeful and devastating— that those with hyphenated identities are/will become the norm, our sense of community both local and global, which, again, indicates progress to me since we must all live together in our evershrinking world. The works on view, all recent, explore a hybrid of traditional and contemporary Asian and Western imagery and techniques. Keiko Fukuzawa is Japanese American. Primarily a ceramicist, she left Japan because, as a woman, she felt she would have more opportunities in the United States for personal expression. As the two series presented here show us, her content is a balancing act between the aesthetically beautiful and the socially and politically urgent. In Peacemaker, she turns guns into flowers, each gun a replica of one used in a mass shooting, each flower a memorial to a death claimed by that shooting. Her weapons, however, have been incapacitated, made of fragile white porcelain instead of harsh adamant metal. Korean American artist Joo Yeon Woo’s red painted cutouts—an updated version of the venerable practice of paper cutting—form a lacy, intricately layered and interwoven wall collage of imagery conjured by a childhood recollection in which she was forbidden to draw a (Communist) red star in art class, the title repeating that injunction. Protesting the suppression of free expression under the authoritarian regime she grew up in, it is also a tribute to insuppressible memory. A thicket of squiggles, diamonds, hearts, flowers, figures, words, letters (Korean and English)—and of course, an abundance of red stars—it again is a test of visual acuity, a series in which Woo posts her

• Lilly Wei is a New York-based art critic, journalist, and independent curator whose focus is contemporary art. 9

Charged at the AHL Foundation Jonathan Goodman

‘Abortion’, ‘Jan. 6’, and ‘Truth’ among colored circles. The words carry potent political weight, shifting the plates from dining utensils to something deeply confrontational. As Fukazawa’s art merges unusual beauty with social critique, it is fair to say that she is attempting to transform the violence we live under into some kind of grace. Lee’s installation, A Very Proper Table Setting, placed on the upper middle of the left wall as the viewer enters the gallery, consists of bowls, plates, and utensils closely covered by off-white hanji, Korean mulberry paper. This work is an iteration of an ongoing long-term project: Lee invites museum and gallery visitors, or strangers encountered in parking lots, from outside Korean culture to create table settings using traditional Korean bowls and utensils in place of their own culture’s dinnerware. She will then preserve the table settings by draping hanji over them to form a casting, a laborious, meticulous process that memorializes the moment of their creation. These social activities produce emotional closeness that is meant to promote dialogues about the different ways that affection is expressed across cultural, ethnic, and racial backgrounds. The results are wall mountings of quiet, contemplative beauty. Lee, whose background is Korean and who now lives in Colorado, came to the US as a teenager. Her

The AHL Foundation, established in 2013 to promote the careers of Korean artists working in the United States and in recent years increasingly showing work by artists who are not Korean, has moved to a small gallery space at 139th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem. The gallery is currently presenting the highly successful Charged, curated by Hyewon Yi, assistant professor of art history and director of the Amelie A. Wallace Gallery at SUNY Old Westbury. Charged features art by four Asian-American women: Keiko Fukazawa, from Japan; Sammy Seung-min Lee, from Korea; Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza, from the Philippines; and Joo Woo, from Korea. Fukazawa, who headed the ceramics department at Pasadena City College, is represented by a series of decorated ceramic plates mounted on a gallery wall. Set on pedestals below the plates are four ceramic replicas of handguns (part of the ongoing series Peacemaker, begun in 2017), exquisitely crafted and set in dark blue or red silklined Chinese calligraphy boxes. Each of the white porcelain guns is covered with small ceramic flowers native to the states in which the shooting took place, each flower representing a victim of random handgun violence. The plates belong to the series Perception Plate (2022), for which the artist made use of the Ishihara color vision test, inserting 14

center of the gallery space. A large, complex work, Do Not Draw a Red Star (2022-present), is based on the stern admonition issued by the South Korean anti-communist government of the 1980s, which sought to destroy all references suggesting sympathy for the Left. Viewers also discover in this intricate work references to Korean folklore, family stories tied to the experience of racism, and images of protests against racism. Woo’s large, complicated design announces that she is neither surrendering the craft of her culture nor letting that craft go untransformed by the severe social stigma imposed by the dominant American culture whose antagonism toward people of different backgrounds remains profoundly troubling. Interestingly, all four women are focused more on preserving their cultural dignity than with mounting an attack against the dominant culture despite its persistent inclination toward racism. The origins of dislike that so often drive the art in this show demand objective study—the antithesis of the intuition artists customarily use in their work. We might ask, not so much for political reasons as for a social understanding of Asian life in the US today, if these gifted women’s work addresses healing. The objects are meant to claim survival in the face of a long-running disregard for artists as a class while also addressing their particular ethnic or racial affiliations. It is important that we not allow rhetoric to push us into a corner. While good art always moves quickly into an artist's awareness, reading that art requires effort and the time in which to reflect. The urge to create enables the artist to make work that will be quickly accessible, so there is plenty of art capable of bringing immediate satisfaction to the viewer, thus delivering an immediate point, but only when art is driven away from personal concerns into relations with public concerns does it assume the true mantle of its purpose. This approach may elude artists belonging to the dominant culture, but it is natural for these Asian women artists to have developed an awareness keen enough to read hardship as a platform for achievement.

wall installation is subtle but telling, as articles of a shared meal are hidden by the mulberry paper, a well-known material of Korean culture. Despite their coverings, these items are identifiable by their outlines, functioning as elements of a bas-relief. This work, then, can be seen both as a sophisticated visual statement and as a means of bringing people together via Asian notions of shared feelings. The increasing presence of Asians in America demands their recognition, and Lee’s installation, subtle and complex, asserts Korean values while including them within a broader spectrum of beliefs and practices identified as “American.” Filipina-American artist Mendoza, whose family brought her to the US when she was three years old, presents three works, all tied to the historical presence of her culture while also referencing the racial prejudice against Filipinos in general, and her family in particular. Resting atop a pedestal is a substantial bag of rice whose commercial markings have been recreated by the artist’s hand. Botan is the brand of rice preferred by Asians in California, but Mendoza has changed the brand name to Baton and exchanged the central image of a rose for a lotus flower. Her modification of the name has been pointed out by curator Yi as a lightly hidden reference to the Bataan Death March led by the Japanese army during World War Two, during which thousands of Filipinos died. Mendoza’s drawing, Portrait of a Man (2022), is based on a photograph taken in the early 20th century, now housed in the Field Museum in Chicago. Small, sharply detailed, and placed at the center of an otherwise blank sheet of paper, Mendoza’s drawing is meant to recall the dignity of a Filipino person during a time when such dignity was hard to come by. All the artists in this show not only attempt to memorialize their culture, but they also revisit the past, with its racial prejudice that so profoundly affected Asian culture, both long ago and now, in order to repair the tattered fabric of Asian memory in the US. In her large printed sheet titled If These Walls Could Talk (2020, reprinted 2023), Mendoza uses the green and white colors of US paper currency to reproduce racist images of Filipino people subjected to economic hardship and cultural contempt a century ago. Mendoza is a very good political artist, announcing her frustrations with the country that is now her home, yet which offers little support, personally or publicly. Joo Woo presents beautiful red cut paper that covers one of the walls extending into the

• Jonathan Goodman is an art writer and poet based in New York. 15

Peacemaker 082620171, Keiko Fukazawa 11.5×11.5×9 inches, Porcelain, fabric box, 2017

Perseption_Plate_(TRUTH), Keiko Fukazawa 17×17×2.5 inches, Porcelain, glaze, china paint, decal, 2022

Layered Tradition, Sikgu Single-channel video, time-lapsed, 27 minutes, Artist built table, glass panels, table casting from artist’s childhood family meal, 2023

A Very Proper Table Setting , Sammy Seung-min Lee 17×28×3.5 inches, average size per piece Hanji (Korean mulberry paper), acrylic varnish, 2017–2023

Baton Rice, Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza 25×15×5 inches, Paper, gouache, thread, 2018

Installation view of If These Walls Could Talk, Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza Wallpaper, baseboard, crown molding, wood book, 2020 (reprinted 2023)

Do Not Draw a Red Star, Joo Woo 110×108 inches, Painted paper cutouts on wall, 2023

A Conversation Before the Opening Moderated by Hyewon Yi

This conversation took place at NBHD Brûlée in Harlem on Saturday, June 24, 2023. It has been edited for length. K Keiko Fukazawa S Sammy Seung-min Lee M Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza J Joo Woo H Hyewon Yi E Everyone

H Let’s jump right in, everyone. My first question is about my title: How do you understand “Charged” and how does it apply to your work? K I’ve been working on the anti-gun violence portfolio, and it’s really fitting into the title, “Charged.” Yes, “Charged” —it’s like you’re literally charging up the bullets (mimes loading a handgun). That’s how you make impact and power, really give energy to it. I can’t articulate it well, but there’s this force pushing everything to a certain point. It’s (the title) really suitable to my recent work as it became more political and cultural. H

What was your reaction, Maryrose?

M I actually really appreciated it when you called it “Charged,” because I thought you understood my work. When I heard the title, “Oh, God,” I thought, “she gets it.” I feel like what I am trying to do a lot of times is have my work within it or underneath it, in there, something that is quote-unquote ‘charged’ with meaning. I feel like I was excited that you chose the word that was loaded with 25

Keiko Fukazawa

the content. Just one word. I like the minimalism. And I felt like it suited my work, at least. It made me very excited. E

Excellent! (Laughter).

J When I hear “Charged,” it immediately brings up intense vibes, like danger, anger, or fear—very strong and dark emotions. It’s not a word I use much in my everyday life. I was thinking this title feels opposite to the overall vibe of these four artists. Each of us has been dealing with some serious, explosive topics, but ironically enough the aesthetics we bring are pretty calm, meditative, and absorbing energy. It’s like “Charged” meets “Mellow.” But I later figured out the curator wanted us and everyone checking out the exhibition to look at “Charged” in a more multidimensional way. Not just danger vibes, but more sparking some burning questions and evolving perspectives of life and work. H I was looking for a simple, enticing word that would reflect everyone’s work, but wasn’t sure if it would satisfy all of you. So, I am very pleased to hear your thoughts on it. M My work, maybe Keiko’s, even Joo’s work—actually all the works—aren’t “in your face.” So that’s why the word is very appropriate, because you might not see the meaning if you don’t give the work time. But then you start to see that “Oh, there’s something resonating here. That’s why it’s very potent, right? If the work was something ‘in your face’, then, it would be something very obvious, but our work is not so obvious. K At the beginning of exhibition planning, you tentatively put the title “Charged.” But I wasn’t sure what else is better than that. I think it resonates with our work being charged; if you have the power, I am in charge. So, our work is in charge, and I thought that it is good, you know? H In fact, your work inspired me a lot to come up with that title. A gun is charged. K Right? It resonates with our work. Our work takes charge to tell the audience. H I have to say that the title “Charged” came to me rather naturally. All of your works have exceptional beauty, loaded with the craftsmanship each one of you displays. However, once we get past the outer beauty of your work, one may engage with the socio-political meaning of your work. It’s “charged” with deeper messages and narratives that are cultural, historical, personal. For me, each work is so charged and focused with what you are trying to deliver and express. In the guise of Asian zen-like calmness and mellowness, I feel the disquieting power each one of you desires to speak, be it, racial inequality, gun violence, ignorance, disconnected communities, misunderstanding. The word is simple and broad enough to encompass our ideas and different practices. Do you think that makes sense? My next question: how does the notion of Asian-ness or Asian identity play out in your artistic practice? Are you always thinking about your Asian identity? I am sorry that this is a typical question you get a lot. I know how important it is to you. I have my own reactions when I see your work, but I would like to reserve my answers after I get yours first. K Okay. First, one decade or two ago, I didn’t really pay attention to my 27

Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza

background and ethnicity as Japanese. Perhaps I wanted to integrate into the Western art world. However, no matter what I do and make, my heritage comes naturally. Then, I worked on an art project called Art and Deviation . It is a collaborative effort between juvenile inmates and me. Working with kids from diverse backgrounds —African-American, Hispanic, Puerto Rican, Jewish, Asian—the collaboration made me realize the stark contrast of my Japanese heritage to both the Western and Eastern influences. So it was like a juxtaposition of cross-cultural images, Japanese pop and American graffiti, all together, you know? H Could you tell me what year the Art and Deviation project was, and perhaps a memorable episode from it? K It lasted through the 1990s, from 1992 to 1999. So bringing up my Japanese heritage seemed like an effective way to make contrast and tell a story. I was interested in starting to think about it, but then my work became more ‘outsider.’ I enjoyed the stark contrast. I have been in this country for almost forty years. Nearly forty years! I still feel culturally an outsider, right, here. Allow me to explain the ceramic process. I created a large plate or vessel, and then I broke, I literally broke it. The shards were given to incarcerated kids. Some shards I kept for myself, while on others, these kids added graffiti reflecting their backgrounds, concerns, and experiences, whether it was the duration of their stay in the juvenile detention center, creating a sand timer drawing, thinking about a girl outside, or even making nude drawings. H

Wow!

K Then, having said that, when I go to Japan, I feel like people say, “You are too Westernized.” Or I can’t follow their mindset. So, I feel outside there too. I feel neither here nor there, like kind of state of mind for the past ten or twenty years. I think diasporic people have kind of the same experience. When you go back to Korea, you think in a non-traditional way, right? H

Right. I can totally understand that.

Yeah!

K So, I would like to explore neither here nor there. My Japanese language deteriorated; reading tough stuff is hard. English, too, gives me trouble with complex texts. Simply put, I am not awesome at either language. That’s why my next project is about creating my own language. M Unfortunately, I feel like I am always thinking about it. As soon as I immigrated to the U.S., even at three-and-a-half, I already felt like eyes were always on me and my family. My father looked like a big, brown Hawaiian man, and just stood out all the time. I always kind of knew people were seeing us differently. I think I’ve tried not to think about it, but it always surfaces. My father and mother came in 1969, then I came in 1970, and L.A. felt very different then. I don’t know whether it was necessarily because of other people, but I could already tell that I would need to make adjustments to make a living in this new place. Being so young, I really didn’t connect much to where I had come from, so I had this sort of “neither here nor there” dynamic. It's only been just recently I've embraced the fact that I am dealing with these ideas of identity more directly 29

Sammy Seung-min Lee

as opposed to doing art where I am doing it, but not telling anybody. Thank you! J I had a similar feeling to what Maryrose mentioned about "eyes always being on us." During my early years in the US, I tried to be nice to everyone, thinking I should represent my home country positively as an individual ambassador. It felt like an extra burden. Then, I came to realize that I don't need to be a nice Korean. Although I now less care about my collective identity as a Korean, in my studio practice, I find myself embracing, redefining, and polishing my Asianness to shine. The further away I am from my home country physically, the more I become obsessed with my Asian-ness. H

That is very interesting!

S I recall training in art in Korea as a teenager, drawing and painting Western heroes’ plaster busts in Western style. I wanted to go to the US to make art the way I wanted (I know this sounds ironic), and thirty-two years later I found myself bringing Korean papers and processing them to create new material for my art. It is as if my material goes through the same process as I, the process of immigration and adaptation. I call this renewed material ‘Paper-Skin’, which has so much potential for my artistic expression and methods. My work tells directly and indirectly many layers of immigrant and hybrid identity. It’s impossible not to think about it living at the present time in the US. H In your thinking, how does your work relate to other artists’ work in the show? If you were to pick one work by another artist in this show, which one relates to your work and why? M I wasn’t thinking so much about how Joo’s work as being similar to mine. I can see similarity, but because she did the wall work, covering the whole wall, the way that Joo’s work overlaps and requires time to look at what those images are and what they mean when built together. I find it really interesting in relation to my wall-paper. Because my wallpaper may not have evident characters or actual things with clear meaning it gives a different kind of read than Joo’s. I find that it is really cool how hers is like a scramble. J Yeah. I read traversing time and space in Maryrose’s work as well. When considering the sense of time and memory, it's not linear. It seems her work employs a more poetic and parallel circuit to tell a story. M Right. But mine is trying to be historical. Mine is trying to tell you “this happened.” So I think it is interesting. J Following up on the artist’s idea of bringing out historical context, do you notice that as you see the long trajectory of your studio practice, you find causality? There is a continuous sequence of cause and effect, where fragmented ideas in previous work span and lead to new work. Ideas repeat, recycle, and revise in a productive way and it all connects because of how things are linked together. M Sure, right, right. K Okay, great, I am really enjoying your passionate discussion. I am fascinated. One thing I would like to talk to you about is that my work has the least cultural background. My work is more about how every American is impacted. 31

Joo Woo

H However, your medium and technique are borrowed from traditional Asian culture. So you are cleverly melding this into your work. K Exactly. So you invited the other three artists who have these strong ethnic backgrounds. Just like you said, history everything into and then, making into their own work. But, just like, I am repeating again, but, probably my next project is neither here nor there. I would like to explore things that I can see relate to these other art works, but again my work is, it’s more like every American feels anti-gun violence and social injustice, whatever. But, I want to bring in my private and personal aspect to my work in the future because of you guys. H When you are in the gallery, do you feel your work is in conversation with someone else’s work, visually or otherwise? K Maybe Maryrose’s work is a bit closer to mine, because of the way she executes it. Even though her work deals with deep issues of Filipino history and how Americans treated them, her approach is noticeably political. I find her perspective quite evident, and in that sense it is similar with mine. H I can see that. Sammy, do you see any work that resonates with yours? S I've been thinking of the idea of "framing" while seeing our installation come together. It is an act of containing. My table settings within the table, then displayed inside the TV—another frame—Keiko's work placed in a protective box shown together on pedestals, a floating wall naturally containing all the loose pieces of collages by Joo, and Maryrose's corner space nests her room installation that is about 80% smaller in scale. Do you know what I mean? M

Because of that.

Framing, containing, memorializing.

H That is very insightful. Sammy is also a very good photographer, I noticed, another art form based on framing, containing, and memorializing. K

Sammy, you designed the flyer too, right?

You put it together. That’s so smart!

And the textures.

But, the textures do not stand out in the frame.

S Visually, it’s tickling me. My white paper creases with the shape of your white flower petals? K, M Oh, yeah, yeah! S For me, it is about a photo and skin. Grafted skin, wallpaper, and this different way of creating. Maybe we are used to our own struggle of perceptions. In a way, it is like exterior, like skin, outer skin, but our own projection from that. Trying to say that in our own way. We are based on this , but we are so 33

immersed in that . M

There is also like a hand on everything. Everybody’s hand is on everything.

H Let me ask another question. Everyone’s work contains the idea of simulacra. You have this idea of imitation of something, but don’t have an actual object, but it comes out of this idea of ready-made, but you bring in a ghost presence of guns, the presence of a rice bag, and ghostly present Korean tableware. K

And guns.

H You bring in these objects without the actual objects. You really seem to make a statement. I feel that but once we put all your work together, there is this commonality, and when I saw that, I thought, “Wow! That’s great!” K, M Yeah! H So all of you enjoy your craftsmanship. You are not merely taking actual objects and then doing something with them the way other artists do. Instead you are literally recreating objects through your chosen process. I found the process of making these works that seem functional as stand-ins for the actual objects fascinating. While Maryrose chose to replicate the rice bags entirely manually, Keiko’s numerous porcelain hand guns were fabricated in factory, then combined with manually produced ceramic flowers that represent victims. Sammy cast the table set-ups by participants in hanji paper entirely manually, but produced them endlessly. You seem to reflect on mass production while commenting on cultural and socio-political elements. Warhol’s Brillo Boxes come to my mind, but your processes tend to rely on painstaking manual labor. The results are imprints of realty: the handguns, the bowls, and plates. Have you thought about the idea of simulacra, that you are working on it in your artistic practice? How and why are you doing it? Why is that appealing to you? M The making of something and the crafting of something give me time to observe, study, and learn. Also, I end up appreciating what I am duplicating more and understand what the meaning is for me. H I am looking at Maryrose’s rice bag. This woman is really patient. She is painting and drawing and creating a trompe l’oeil rice bag! M I don’t know if this is similar to what you guys are doing, but I know something when I am learning about it, when I am trying to make a copy of it, a version of it. I know it. J Once we master the technical skills, we know how to use limitations as tools to go beyond. Even if the process, like Sammy’s work method, is complicated and labor intensive, everyone knows how to simplify things and make the most of limitations. We learn from these intricate processes and imitate them. Instead of bragging about how much we can do to convey messages successfully, we emphasize minimizing rather than optimizing. M Right. J

You see how we use limitation in smart ways and artistic ways? 34

Yeah.

J Sammy uses very limited colors. She activates edges, utilizes shadows and negative space instead of positive images. M, H Yeah. K

Also, contained the form, so empty.

It is literally cast after actual bowls and plates.

Shadow! Using shadows is very simple modern language.

M Yeah. I think it is language, like using the images, like using found images, appropriated images as language. Me too, the rice bag, you know that Botan, the rice bag, you know that brand. It’s language. Familiar language. I know those are for eating, I know that because I know that familiar form. S Also, we are talking about familiar language becoming odd and unfamiliar. For me, all those bowls and saucers on the bas-relief start appearing like a landscape, like a moonscape. The moon is so familiar in one sense, yet so unfamiliar because you have never been there (yet)! H The reason you are casting … are you hoping that the viewers will bring their familiar experience to them? S

Yeah, right.

J I believe personal stories and language may not be necessary for the audience to know, as they can function as abstraction. H Sure. May we close this conversation with one more question? What do you think it means to have this exhibition in West Harlem, this place that is charged with rich history? K I have an answer! It’s because I brought my husband, who is an AfricanAmerican, who lived here for one or two years in the 60s and 70s. Back then, Harlem was all Black. He couldn’t believe how much this place has undergone gentrification, finding it surprising to see individuals speaking different languages in the brownstone apartment buildings. It’s a notable change, meeting people speaking various languages with different accents, especially among the Black people who live and visit here. H

So today there is increased diversity among Black people in Harlem.

J I heard that a lot of Black people from the South moved to the North during the Great Migration, many of them made Harlem their home. So, in reality, all these Black people were immigrants back then, just like us today. We talked about visiting soul food restaurants in this neighborhood. Enjoying soul food might carry a special communal meaning and sense of home to us as well. K Also, White people moved to Harlem, Korean people move in. For me, Harlem is a melting pot. I think it’s a good idea to start a new dialogue and have a 35

show here, bringing together different people and backgrounds. As an Asian, I’m excited about this dialogue, and our art is meant to connect with this community. S Harlem was an imaginary place to me till this show! It is my first time visiting and staying in Harlem. I enjoyed eating, walking through the neighborhood, and conversing with a few people through the gallery director’s introduction. Many neighbors peeked in with interest and curiosity while we were installing. I felt welcomed, and the interactions have been amicable. I did think about Korean-Black tensions in the LA area, though, as I lived through the LA riot and wondered how these two groups get along in NYC. I am excited to meet and talk with them at the opening. H You have a great point. The racial conflict between Korean immigrants and the Black community has a history in the US. The pandemic brought out hatred toward Asians, among other minority communities. Hopefully, our exhibition creates a dialogue and reduces such tension and raises understanding and acceptance. We should have another conversation about it, but now it’s time to get back to the gallery or there will be no time left for the opening! Thank you very much for participating in this conversation!

• Hyewon Yi, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Art History and Director of Amelie A. Wallace Gallery at SUNY Old Westbury.

Checklist of the Exhibition

All photos are courtesy of the artists unless otherwise specified. Installation views and opening reception photos on pages 10, 11, 12, 13, 38 – 49 were taken by Jinhong Kim.

Sammy Seung-min Lee A Very Proper Table Setting 17×28×3.5 inches, average size per piece Hanji (Korean mulberry paper), acrylic varnish, 2017–2023 page 6,19, 49, contents page

Keiko Fukazawa Peacemaker 082620171 11.5×11.5 x 9 inches Porcelain, fabric box, 2017 page 16

Peacemaker 082620175 11.5×11.5 x 9 inches Porcelain, fabric box, 2017

Layered Tradition, Sikgu Single-channel video, time-lapsed, 27 minutes, Artist built table, glass panels, table casting from artist’s childhood family meal, 2023 page 18

Peacemaker 1202201514 (San Bernardino, CA) 12×12×10 inches Porcelain, fabric box, 2018 foreword page

Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza If These Walls Could Talk Wallpaper, baseboard, crown molding, wood book, 2020, reprinted 2023 page 12,13, front and back inside covers

Peacemaker 1105201726 (Sutherland Spring, TX) 12×12×10 inches Porcelain, fabric box, 2018 page 39

Portrait of a Man 24×32 inches Colored pencil on paper, 2022 page 28, 39

Perception Plate (Truth) 17×17×2.5 inches Porcelain, glaze, china paint, decal, 2022 page 17

Baton Rice 25×15×5 inches Paper, gouache, thread, 2018 page 12, 20

Perception Plate (Jan. 6) 17×17×2.5 inches Porcelain, glaze, china paint, decal, 2022

Joo Woo Do Not Draw a Red Star 110×108 inches Painted paper cutouts on wall, 2023 page 11, 22, 23

Perception Plate (Abortion) 17×17×2.5 inches Porcelain, glaze, china paint, decal, 2022

About the Artists

Keiko Fukazawa, a Japanese American ceramicist living in California, presents four sculptures from Peacemaker (2017– ), her ongoing series addressing US gun culture and mass shootings. White porcelain replicas of handguns and rifles used in mass shootings over the past twenty years are presented atop silk-covered or inside silklined Chinese calligraphy boxes. The state flowers where the shootings occurred adorn the guns, each flower representing a victim. Presented as vessels of precious objects—white is the color of death and mourning in Japan, as it is in most East Asia cultures—the boxes are symbolic coffins. Three plates from the series Perception Plate (2014, 2022) will also be shown. Fukazawa coopted the Ishihara color vision test, but instead of numerals, the words ‘Abortion’, ‘Jan. 6’, and ‘Truth’ appear amid colored dots on decorative Chinese plates. Will the viewer perceive the reality before her eyes, or will she be blind to the facts? • www.keikofukazawa.com Sammy Seung-min Lee, a Korean American artist living in Colorado, presents A Very Proper Table Setting (2017– ), a sculptural wall relief installation of a series of table settings cast in hanji (Korean mulberry paper). While traveling through the US over the past several years, Lee has invited strangers to set a table with her in galleries, museums, and parking lots. Participants were asked to create table settings for someone special using traditional Korean bowls, dishes, and utensils. Lee deployed this cross-cultural project as a vehicle to connect the artist with participants out of a desire for reconciliation. The sociability of the project transforms into formal elegance, the paper casting of each participant’s table giving shape to narratives and memories of family, identity, gender, power structures, and alternative traditions. • www.studiosmlk.com

Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza, a Filipino American living in California, presents three works that reflect on the consequences of colonial mentality and Mendoza’s resistance to it. Shown together in an alcove space of the AHL Foundation’s gallery, a dialogue is created among the works. In If These Walls Could Talk (2020, reprinted 2023), a wallpaper corner vignette in which racist depictions of Filipinos are the background of American colonization is bordered by outsized classical crown molding and baseboard, while decorative flourishes from the US dollar bill intermingle with nineteenth-century political cartoons depicting American racist attitudes toward the Philippines during US imperialist expansion. Portrait of a Man (2022), a naturalistically rendered pencil drawing of a man’s head, references an ethnographic photograph of a Filipino man taken by Dean C. Worcester (1908-1910, housed in Chicago’s Field Museum). Mendoza’s portrait extracts the man’s head from its original context in an attempt to restore the subject’s dignity and humanity lost at the hands of a colonial power that viewed indigenous Filipinos as objects of scientific study. Baton Rice (2018) is a trompe l’oeil paper sculpture inspired by the Botan Rice brand that was the go-to rice for many Asian immigrants in California in the 1970’s. A lotus flower replaces the company’s original rose motif, while the company’s name is changed to ‘Baton’, suggesting Bataan (as in the Bataan Death March) or a baton passed in a relay. • www.maryrosecmendoza.com Joo Woo, a Korean American artist living in Florida, presents Do Not Draw a Red Star (2022), a collection of painted paper cutouts reflecting a formative memory from her childhood in South Korea that also serves as a metaphor of her adulthood as an immigrant in the US. Woo integrates fragmented shapes and texts from the two cultures to traverse time and place. The cutouts refer to folkloric imagery from Woo’s ancestry, family stories tied to the division of her homeland, and protests denouncing racism. The title, along with red as the dominant color, originates from Woo’s childhood recollection of being forbidden to draw a red star in art class in deference to the 1980’s anti-communist education in South Korea under the military dictatorship. Letters in Korean and English are included, and the overlapping of these letters and images obscures reading, much as does Fukazawa’s Perception Plate. • www.joowoo.net 53

This publication accompanies the exhibition Charged: Keiko Fukazawa | Sammy Seung-min Lee | Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza | Joo Woo Curated by Hyewon Yi and presented at AHL Foundation, New York, NY, USA from June 24 to July 21, 2023.

The exhibition was supported in part by the Creative Scholarship Grant of the University of South Florida, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, the Amelie A. Wallace Gallery of SUNY Old Westbury, and COLLECTIVE SML | k.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Curation Hyewon Yi Venue AHL Foundation Exhibit Essays Lilly Wei Jonathan Goodman Hyewon Yi Contributors Jiyoung Lee Yooah Park

Photo Credits Jinhong Kim Hyewon Yi and the artists

Catalog Design Suzin Kwon