Exhibition Calendar

Windows on Nature

In “Windows on Nature,” Koh explores in greater depth themes that have remained central to his photography and photo-sculptures from the beginning, namely the intersections of specific human impacts and the natural world. These images are pan-cultural, setting Koh outside of current trends among many international artists, artists who fuse and mix explicit signifiers of and references to Asian and non-Asian cultures. Instead, Koh remains rooted in the sublime possibilities of a wondrous meditation on natural cycles, the turning of the seasons and the movement of waves or fields of grass, as well as the presence of modern humanity as it imposes and intervenes in the context of nature. The presence of human beings in this exhibition’s photo-sculptures represents a break with earlier work, a new direction when previously only nature and the inanimate products of human effort were depicted.

The exhibition at Frey Norris Gallery is accompanied by a twenty page catalogue with an essay by Anuradha Vikram, a San Francisco based writer and curator and Program Director at the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito. Vikram comments:

Koh Myung Keun’s photo-sculptures embrace the emptiness inside all things. Their transparent surfaces reflect images of the world, whether architecture, landscape or the elements, while within there is nothing. This approach reflects a Buddhist-inspired awareness of ephemerality, as Koh’s art demonstrates how to rise above this mortal plane.