Jiwon Rhie
Image: Jiwon Rhie, Undertow, 2023 (Photo: Courtesy of Jiwon Rhie)
Suddenly Images Explain Everything
May 14 - June 30, 2024
Curated by Sophia Ma
New York, NY, May 14, 2024 – New York, NY, – La MaMa Galleria is proud to present Suddenly, Images Explain Everything, a solo exhibition by Jiwon Rhie, curated by Sophia Ma. The exhibition opens Thursday, May 16, and will be on view through June 30, 2024.
After arriving in the United States in 2017 for her master's in fine arts at the Pratt Institute, the Brooklyn-based multimedia Korean artist found herself culturally displaced. After exploring themes of alienation, rejection, and expectations in her works over the past few years, Rhie embarks on a new arena that broadens her work to discuss the more expansive human experience. What persists in Rhie’s installations and object-based interactive works is how they serve as portals of resonant experiences for the participants.
Rhie’s work brings awareness to the feelings that otherwise go unnoticed in the hurry of contemporary life. Using viewers’ alertness to the seeing process of sculptures, the artist invites one to see familiar objects anew and enter awareness of one’s environment. In her works in the Conscious Consciousness series, a recognizable set of household vernacular–-collapsable blinds are used to activate the container and the space all around it. The Duchampian conceptual gesture of taking the object from its context has long befuddled the public imagination. While the 20th-century iconoclast aimed to subvert and intellectualize the activity of art viewing, Rhie’s invitation is much more sensitive. Tapping into universal longings, from the strangeness of the self as witnessed and surveilled by others, she holds viewers in the discomfort of this tension.
In this exhibition, Rhie invites two alternative gallery spaces P.A.D. (Project Art Distribution) and Short Stop Gallery, to join the presentation. The partnership with P.A.D. and Short Stop Gallery signals how Rhie engages with the essential ideas of her practice–a playfulness to discuss serious subjects, such as interconnectivity, support, community, and accessibility of art for the general public. The artist has shown with both alternative galleries in the past. Given La MaMa Galleria’s history of experimentation, Ma posed to present new Rhie’s iterations of her exhibitions with Shortstop Gallery–As Ever and P.A.D.–adapting within La MaMa Galleria.
Short Stop Gallery is a gallery within candy dispensers. As Ever holds yapping Rhie’s Flower Dogs (2016-ongoing) that are too big to walk within the upper portion, so they shake the two dispensers as they bark and move. The lower container issues capsules with a keychain the artist made at the low cost of 75 cents. Similar to the friendly accessibility of the Short Stop Gallery, P.A.D. prides itself on curating shows with art in the $75 range. Normally hosting its shows in the heart of Soho outdoors on packing pads during the warmer months, this special P.A.D. presentation of adapting hosts Short Stop within its four corners, rendering the dispensers as artworks that her fellow Flower Dogs joyfully meander in between. The gesture extends Rhie’s distinct approach to objecthood through this interactive exchange.
La MaMa Galleria provides Rhie with a unique platform for exploration and discovery within her solo exhibition, Suddenly, Images Explain Everything. Through her thought-provoking installations and interactive works, Rhie delves into the expansive human experience, shedding light on emotions often overlooked in contemporary life. Partnering with Project Art Distribution and Short Stop Gallery underscores Rhie's commitment to fostering playfulness while connecting with the public. By reimagining her previous exhibitions within the experimental space of La MaMa Galleria, Rhie invites viewers to engage with her work in new and unexpected ways, further emphasizing the power of art to provoke introspection and dialogue.
For press inquiries, images and interview request, please contact the gallery at
lamamagalleria@gmail.com
