This exhibition was the first to showcase the broad range of work by the influential but underrepresented Korean-American artist, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.
This exhibition is sponsored in part by “Silicon, Carbon, Culture: Combining Codes through the Arts, Humanities, and Technology,” a collaborative project of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the College of Fine and Applied Arts, with support from the Madden Initiative in Technology, Arts, and Culture. We appreciate the gracious support of Hampton Inn who hosts our guest speakers.
Cha worked in media ranging from video and performance art to works on paper and ceramics. An ongoing exploration of themes born out of personal experience, primarily those of geographic exile and cultural displacement, Cha's extraordinarily complex work is distinguished by multiple cultural references and influences: French film theory, Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic studies, Confucianism, Catholicism, and Korean mysticism.
In her short life and career, Cha made an important contribution to late 20th century American art and the influence of her pioneering work in film and videos, performance art, mail and stamp art, and artists' books continues to grow. Coming of age as an artist in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1970s, Cha was at the center of a series of influential artistic movements, including conceptual art, performance art, and video. The Dream of the Audience at Krannert Art Museum was the first presentation of Cha's work in the Midwest.
