198:. The three-hour commute of subway riding and walking evolved into his time and place to make art, as Kang figured 3-square-inched sized canvases easily fit into his pocket as well as the palm of his hand. On such canvases, Kang painted, drew, wrote, sewed, and attached clay, metal, rice, and plastic, among other found objects collected amongst the city's discarded materials, developing a multimedia practice. The resulting thousands "artistic painting/objects", described as both "immediate and diaristic" of the artist's life in a new city and culture, would be hung into a grid formation. Kang stated that his adoption of the grid formation has come from observing the tiled walls of New York City's subway platforms, which alluded to a strong sense of space and time, and also referred to the structure of Japanese
410:(2004), a 15-meter-diameter spherical balloon made of 126,000 children's drawings, had unintentionally deflated to an irregular shape during its installation before floating on a lake near the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. Paying attention to the fact that moon jars were produced by a particular process of adjoining two hemispherical halves, the artist likened the porcelain ware to hangul–both invented during
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the modernist grid by presenting the artist's "experience of the undifferentiated commonplace". While the large-scale mosaic-like installations, often presented as public art, persisted as the artist's dominant style, Kang also developed his oeuvre by transforming his daily practice of making the canvases into "living" performances for which he would make paintings continuously for the duration of a show (
361:(2004). Among its consisting 2,700 3 x 3-inch tiles were about 1,000 tiles that incorporated meaningful artifacts donated by the Princeton community, including "a deck of playing cards owned by Albert Einstein, pieces of the Berlin Wall, and a 1909 Free Public Library notice, along with everyday items such as a sports equipment, a parking meter, and family photos."
378:, the Korean alphabet. Each syllable was written and drawn with "crapas", a children-friendly type of crayon. Using its dozen colors, Kang distinguished between the syllable's consonant and vowel letters that highlighted hangul's modular system of construction. This design has become known as the Ik-Joong Kang Typeface (강익중체,
382:). The artist further produced hangul letters that can better notate English pronunciations, such as the f, r, th, v, and z consonants. The many syllables and canvases put together made sentences in Korean, offering simple factoids and points of wisdom the artist claims to "know" or has learned from life. The series, titled
273:(1992–1994) was a series that followed, which paired seated Buddha images, a repeated motif found in Kang's oeuvre, with a recording of the artist reciting English phrases sampled from magazines, newspapers, and books. Chocolate also surfaced as a significant material incorporated into the artist's work, as exemplified in
224:, and Ken Chu. The casual social gatherings often involved discussions about the limited opportunities available for Asian American artists, who found themselves historically excluded from the art world. Born from the Tuesday Lunch Club meetings thus hatched the pan-Asian and Pacific Islander American artists' collective,
460:, the work in cube format was composed of 12,000 3 x 3-inch drawings by children from the 23 nations that supported South Korea during the Korean War, their silhouette shaped into a large moon jar. Surrounding the moon jar were the artist's hangul letter drawings spelling out the lyrics to the Korean folk song
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as another source of inspiration, for it contains several small squares within a larger one, offering a person both a limited and vast amount of space. Curator
Eugenie Tsai found Kang's grid formation "diametrically opposed to" European History paintings that encapsulated single moments and subverted
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The works produced during the early years of his career grafted aspects of and his experiences between Korean and
American culture. Kang's untitled series of drawings from 1992, on 3 × 3-inch pieces of paper, put alongside English words and phrases written in red and their Korean translations in
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was organized by
Artists Against Racial Prejudice (AARP), "a multi-ethnic group that formed in reaction to the racial tension that has recently exploded in Brooklyn," signaling to the time's intraracial conflict between Korean American and African American communities that surfaced with the
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After graduating from Pratt, Kang began working in his studio in
Chinatown, among other artists of Asian descent. Frequenting together around Chinatown's affordable lunch spots was formed the Tuesday Lunch Club (TLC), including artists such as Arlan Huang, Bing Lee,
302:, for the Whitney Museum of American Art at Champion in 1994. Tsai's exhibition at the Whitney was expanded upon by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, in 2009, commemorating Paik's passing in 2006. For the latter exhibition, titled
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Artists
Against Racial Prejudice, postcard for "The Mosaic of the City: Artists Against Racial Prejudice," exhibition presented by Artists Against Racial Prejudice and The Center for Art and Culture of Bedford Stuyvesant, Inc., 1–28 July
406:), an iconic type of Korean white porcelain named after its full moon shape, emerged as a major subject and motif in the artist's oeuvre beginning in 2007. The artist was first reminded of the moon jar by chance when his work
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Kang had been exposed to and engaged with projects of the time that responded to racial inequalities nonetheless and participated in a number of shows curated by Asian
American curators and art organizations, such as the
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While Kang's own handwriting–both in Korean and
English–had been incorporated from early in his career, in 2001, Kang began to put forth a series of works in which a single 3 x 3-inch canvas bore one syllable in
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has been cited as an influential and significant figure to Kang, especially for their shared approach and system to art-making: employing modular units to build up a larger whole, which both artists likened to
314:("more the better", 다다익선, 1988), a highlighted work of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art's collection, which was commissioned to and built using 1,003 televisions by Paik to celebrate
365:(2008) for Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art is another large-scale mural that incorporates drawings by children, collected objects, as well as the artist's own drawings and writing on 3 x 3-inch tiles.
298:, a Korean dish that mixes rice with whatever is at hand. Kang and Paik have been paired up multiple times for a two-person exhibition. The earliest exhibition was curated by Eugenie Tsai, titled
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as well as his adopted home, the US, Kang had multiple exhibitions hosted by major institutions in both countries, such as the
Whitney Museum of American Art at Champion, Connecticut (1994), the
386:, developed from offering a single sentence to multiple, developing into and presented as prose poetry. The series was featured as a large-scale installation in the Korean Pavilion for
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310:("all things in nature", 삼라만상, 2009), which presented approximately 62,000 of his 3 x 3 inch canvases installed around a 200-meter-long spiral wall. The work was to surround Paik's
334:(1999–2000), displayed drawings from 50,000 South Korean children that were built into a 1-kilometer-long winding vinyl greenhouse. The project led Kang to work on similar
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and also developed as a participatory work that incorporated sentences received from the general public for the artist's solo show at Arko Art Center, Seoul, in 2017.
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In 1997, the artist began collecting drawings from participants among the general public and especially children. Kang would incorporate the drawings into large-scale
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visual artist, best known for his work using canvases measuring 3 by 3 inches (7.6 cm × 7.6 cm). Well-acknowledged in his native
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or outdoor installation works by transferring the images onto 3 × 3 or square tiles of varying sizes. The earliest example,
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By 2004, Kang's approach to the series evolved to involve not only drawings but also objects. For the opening of the new building of
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While a student at Pratt
Institute, Kang had worked twelve hours a day between a grocery store in Manhattan and a flea market in
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in 1990. While Kang was not part of the founding members of
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and earned his MFA in 1988. Kang has since lived and worked between Chelsea and Chinatown in Manhattan, New York City.
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Park, Eunyoung. "Beyond Conflict. Toward Collaboration: The Korean American Arts Community in New York. 1980s–1990s."
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Design Press. "Oh! Creator #37 Sŏlch'imisulga kangikchung: tarhangarirŭl saranghan yyŏndaemisul-gamisulga ." 2017.
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in Seoul and earn his BFA degree in 1984. Unsatisfied by his studies, Kang moved to New York to further study at
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held by Korea. The exhibition featured Kang's performance of making bibimbap to share with the audience.
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211:, Montclair State College, Montclair, NJ, 1990), or translating them into a series of woodcuts (1991).
342:(2001), a commission from the United Nations, and 126,000 drawings by children from 141 countries for
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Design Press. "Oh! Creator #37 Sŏlch'imisulga kangikchung: misulga han'gŭrŭl hwakchanghada ." 2017.
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held at the Skylight Gallery of the Center for Arts and Culture of Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn.
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Coloring Time: An Exhibition from the Archive of Korean-American Artists Part One (1955–1989)
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The series of works developed into mixed media paintings, sculptural installations, such as
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130:(2010). Kang had been one of the two artists commissioned to represent South Korea for the
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Kang's interest in art continued through high school, leading him to study painting at
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National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea. "Mŏlt'ip'ŭltaiŏllogŭ ." 2009.
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artasiamerica: A Digital Archive for Asian / Asian American Contemporary Art History.
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Raven, Arlene. "Throw Everything Together and Add, Montclair State University, NJ."
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Lee, Christine. "Korean artist Ik-Joong Kang on the art of being Zen – interview."
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gave out to children in post-war Korea that signaled America's plenitude.
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Hyun, Soojung. "Korean-American Artists in New York in the 1990s." In
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Arko Art Center, "Ik-Joong Kang:Things I Know" press release, 2017.
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Kim, Daljin. "Tu kaeŭi omajujŏn yŏnŭn chaemihwaga kangikchungssi ."
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as well as the names of 175,801 fallen soldiers of the Korean War.
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166:(강세황, 姜世晃, 1713–1791), an influential literati painter of
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was a kinetic sculpture, its top half in slow rotation.
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The Mosaic of the City: Artists Against Racial Prejudice
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765:"IK-JOONG KANG – Artists – Kang Collection Korean Art"
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New York, N.Y.: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1996.
815:"Interactive kiosk enhances library art installation"
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National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea
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Multiple/Dialogue: Nam June Paik & Ik-Joong Kang
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Multiple/Dialogue: Nam June Paik & Ik-Joong Kang
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652:Chen, Howie. "Godzilla: Critical Origins." In
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265:, Oh Chi-Gyun, Hoyoon Choi, and William Jung.
134:in 1997 and was awarded an honorable mention.
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560:Trezzi, Nicola. "Focus Asia: Ik-Joong Kang."
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598:Tsai, Eugenie. "The Art of Ik-Joong Kang."
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296:bibimbap
144:Cheongju
21:In this
850:18 July
825:18 July
799:18 July
774:18 July
617:, 1992.
462:Arirang
452:by the
402:(달항아리,
255:Mo Bahc
158:of the
152:Itaewon
412:Joseon
376:hangul
328:murals
269:blue.
168:Joseon
108:Korean
43:Hangul
696:1990.
279:G.I.s
200:Shoji
59:Hanja
852:2022
827:2022
801:2022
776:2022
731:OCLC
711:OCLC
658:OCLC
539:OCLC
419:1392
398:The
28:Kang
989:on
980:on
978:강익중
971:on
146:in
112:강익중
66:姜益中
50:강익중
1002::
939:.
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908:^
879:^
860:^
843:.
817:.
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767:.
744:^
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686:^
667:^
572:^
549:^
518:^
499:^
480:^
350:.
257:,
110::
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