NOWHERE/NOW HERE Art Show

I'm excited to announce the opening of the NOWHERE/NOW HERE show at the Harbor Art Gallery. The exhibition showcases a wide range of artists who work in different mediums: digital and traditional photography, painting, print, sculpture and video installation. All of the works explore the theme of space & place.

The show opens today and it will be up until February 7, 2013. The gallery is open from Monday-Thursday, 1-7 pm. 

The reception is on Wednesday, January 30, from 5-8. And you're all invited! 

Here is the final line-up of artists for the show: 

KC Evitts: Transience, oil painting

Susan Tan: The Order in Random, photography 

Carrie Savage: Three Years and Two Months, photography 

Rashelle Brown: Welcome Home, photography 

Nicole Bousquet: Untitled, charcoal drawing 

Gwen Vitti: The Last Drop, sculpture 

Eunah Bang: Kor-glish, sculpture 

Amanda Wild: Multiverse, silk print 

Minhae Shim: Video Sassoon, new media installation

Special thanks to: 

Ann Torke: Advisor 

Kevin Benisvy: Director, Harbor Art Gallery

Daniel Roth: Creative Consultant for Video Sassoon

If you get a chance to go, please let us know your thoughts: minhae.shim@gmail.com 

Nobody Puts Minhae In the Nook

"NOBODY PUTS MINHAE IN THE NOOK" is a phrase coined playfully by my friend, Amanda Wild, as we were discussing the logistics of setting up our show, Nowhere/Now Here, at the Harbor Art Gallery. 

As a video artist and an artist who is interested in using and exploring media, I've noticed that displaying my work presents a distinct set of complications. For the upcoming show, I'll be exhibiting a new media installation, titled Video Sassoon. The work is a multimedia experience that has sculptural, audio, and video elements. Below is a statement about the work: 

"Video Sassoon is a phantasmagorical meditation on media, remediation, and the editing process. Discarded strips of videotape are repurposed to create a screen through which a digital video is projected. In the video, newly severed pieces of hair float across the screen to the tune of a familiar funeral ballad that has been rendered unrecognizable by the editing process. The work uses the inescapably human material of hair to comment on the omnipresence of media and its evolution, and to connect video editing to a familiar, tactile experience." 

So where does a piece like this, and other video or media works, go within the space of a gallery or a museum? The Harbor Art Gallery has a "nook" in the far left of the gallery. It's an enclosed space made of temporary walls within the gallery itself. During discussions of which artist will display where, the running joke was that my work "was perfect for the nook." And we'll be going to put the show up tomorrow morning in fact, so I'll make sure to document the set-up process. 

Scholars who study digital media, such as Christiane Paul, are aware of the issues of new media exhibition and are actively engaged in the problem-solving process for displaying works of new media: "New media art seems to call for a distributed, 'living' information space that is open to artistic interference - a space for exchange, collaborative creation and presentation that is transparent and flexible." 

Video Sassoon is a piece that needs space to be displayed and experienced. I'm sure that there will be challenges in the installation and exhibition process in the video nook, but I'm also excited to see how the exhibition space itself will transform and contribute to the work. 

The above photographs were from the initial projection test. More photos and info about the final installed piece, and the show, to come. 

Transport: Video vs. Painting

I mostly work in digital media, so I encountered a novel challenge this new year's week when I had to transport my 60" x 60" surrealist painting (which also weighs about 20 pounds) from the studio to its new home. Seeing at this painting is just about my height, I enlisted Danny's help in moving it. (More photos of the painting, entitled Kismet, coming later)

We had originally planned to take it on the T, knowing very well that we would be objects of disdain in a crowded train. When we went out to dinner and explained our plan to friends, they suggested that we rent a van instead (thanks Ta-Wei and Erica!).

Moving the painting in a big van was less painful than taking it on the T, but it was certainly more challenging that transporting video files. The physicality of a painting (paint, canvas, wood) and its presence in a specific place complicates the transport of a painting.

The heaviest things used to transport video are a hard drive and perhaps a laptop. Video files are also often moved over networks and the internet. Of course, there's the issue of film/video production equipment. However, pieces of equipment are smaller and more easily packed than a relatively fragile 5' x 5' painting.

While transporting painting is (usually) a more involved process than transporting video files, exhibition of painting vs. video is certainly another story, which I'll address in another post.