Cold War Baby: Historical Context Meets Aesthetics

Yong Soon Min was born in 1953– the year the Korean War ended in an armistice and the year of Joseph Stalin’s death during the Cold War. Min, a lovingly self proclaimed “Cold War Baby,” spent her artistic career unraveling the aftereffects and enduring consequences of these wars on nation-state history, diasporic (forced and chosen) migration, and on the bodies of generations of peoples.

Join us for a panel discussion which includes Simon Leung, project-based artist and professor of art, UC Irvine; Sunny Xiang, assistant professor of English and affiliate professor of Ethnicity, Race, and Migration, Yale University; and Steven Lee, associate professor of English, UC Berkeley; who will contextualize the geopolitics of the Koreas in relation to the major players of the Cold War and share how the echoes of these pasts still are in play in contemporary politics and art practice today, especially in relation to Min’s final commissioned artwork, KISSSSS. After presentations by each participant, independent curator Amy Kahng, PHD Candidate Stony Brook University Department of Art, will moderate a dynamic conversation.

This program is co-organized by GYOPO, a collective of diasporic Korean arts non-profit organization that Yong Soon co-founded. GYOPO generates progressive, critical, intersectional and intergenerational discourses through free educational public programs and projects in Los Angeles and beyond. It is generously co-sponsored by the Center for Critical Korean Studies and the Department of Art History.

Event registration is recommended but not required. Register here.

Advance pre-paid parking permits are available for purchase here.

KISSSSS by Yong Soon Min is on view October 5 - December 14. For more details click here.