한방글 Bang Geul Han: "If You Grind The Threshold of Three Other Houses"
If You Grind The Threshold of Three Other Houses is a solo exhibition of recent work by artist-in-residence Bang Geul Han. Working across a diverse array of media forms and processes, from weaving to artificial intelligence, Han critically engages with shifting understandings of public and private territories in relation to language, gender and body. Through playful and jarring juxtapositions and layering, Han creates material manifestations of the reverberating desires and libidinal investments at work within the legal documents, government memoranda, and written and spoken words of figures in positions of power, including Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Harvey Weinstein, and Congressman Henry J. Hyde. Originating from a 15th century Korean superstition believed to induce an abortion, the exhibition title frames Han’s practice as a series of ritualized acts that grind and chip away at the metaphorical thresholds guarding asymmetric social and political power structures. Complementing works in sculpture, textile, and generative video, the exhibition also includes TalkMeTender.life, an online artificial intelligence chatbot developed in collaboration with London-based artist Minna Pöllänen.* Trained on feminist texts concerning themes of care and mortality the chatbot provides a counterpoint to the exhibition’s probing of biopolitical frameworks, by looking at vulnerability and difference as sites of care and possibility rather than exploitation and subjugation.
* Commissioned as part of Together Alone 2.0, a project organized collaboratively by the Finnish Academic and Cultural Institutes.
About the Artist
Bang Geul Han is an interdisciplinary artist working across video, performance, text, and code. Born and raised in Seoul, Korea, her work has been shown in venues including A.I.R. Gallery, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Cuchifritos Gallery, DOOSAN Gallery New York, NURTUREart, and Queens Museum in New York City, Galerie Les Territories and Projét Pangée in Montreal, and Centro Internazionale per l’Arte Contemporanea in Rome. Han is the recipient of a number of artist residencies and fellowships including The Block Gallery Artist Residency and the Artist in the Marketplace (AIM) program at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace program, A.I.R. Fellowship, MacDowell Fellowship, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and Center for Emerging Visual Artists in Philadelphia, PA. Han received her MFA in Electronic Integrated Arts from NYSCC at Alfred University, Alfred NY and BFA in Painting from Seoul National University in Korea. She lives and works in New York City.
Curatorial Credit and Exhibition Support
If You Grind The Threshold of Three Other Houses has been organized by The Bronx Museum’s Education Department, and is made possible by the generous support of Martin Weinstein and Tereza Liszka, Debbie Rechtler, Cher Lewis, Friends of AIM, SRI Fine Art Services, the Jerome Foundation, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, and the Miranda Family Fund. Additional support of the AIM artist residency is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The New York Community Trust, William Talbott Hillman Foundation, Oded Halahmy Foundation for the Arts, Inc., Joshua Stein PLLC, and Gerald Weinstein.
