Ik-Joong Kang

In this Korean name, the family name is Kang.

Ik-Joong Kang
Hangul	강익중
Hanja	姜益中
Revised Romanization	Kang Ikjung
McCune–Reischauer	Kang Ikchung

Ik-Joong Kang (Korean: 강익중, Hanja: 11 September 1960–), is a Korean American visual artist, best known for his large scale installation works, often as public art, built with canvases measuring 3 by 3 inches (7.6 cm by 7.6 cm). Well-acknowledged in his native South Korea 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 Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris, New York (1996), and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (2010). Kang had been one of the two artists commissioned to represent South Korea for the 47th Venice Biennale in 1997 and was awarded an honorable mention.

Early life and Education

Kang was born in Cheongwon-gun, a region now part of the city of Cheongju in Chungcheongbuk-do, South Korea, but grew up in Itaewon, a district in Seoul popular among ex-pats and U.S. military personnel for being closely located by the Yongsan Garrison of the United States Forces Korea (USFK). Kang had pursued art since a young age, having been encouraged by his family, known as descendants of many artists and scholars, such as Kang Sehwang (강세황, 姜世晃, 1713–1791), an influential literati painter of the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910).

Kang’s interest in art continued through high school, leading him to study painting at Hong-Ik University in Seoul and earn his BFA degree in 1984. Unsatiated by his studies, Kang moved to New York to further study at Pratt Institute and earned his MFA in 1988. Kang has since lived and worked between Chelsea and Chinatown in Manhattan, New York City.

Works and Career

3 x 3 inch canvases

While a student at Pratt Institute, Kang had worked twelve hours a day between a grocery store in Manhattan and a flea market in Far Rockaway, Queens. 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 canvases described as both "immediate and diaristic" of the artist's life in a new city and culture, were then 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. The artist has also referred to the structure of Japanese Shoji 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. While large-scale installations, often incorporating several thousands of his “artistic painting/objects,” persisted as his dominant style and work method throughout his career, Kang further developed his oeuvre by transforming his daily practice of making the canvases into “living” performances–in which he would make paintings continuously for the duration of a show–, incorporating elements of sound, and translating his quick drawings into woodcuts.

early works

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, Byron Kim, 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, Godzilla Asian American Arts Network, in 1990. While Kang was not part of the founding members of Godzilla, he maintained close ties with many deeply involved.

Nonetheless, Kang had been exposed to and engaged with projects of the time that responded to racial inequalities. In 1990, Kang was among those leading the exhibition The Mosaic of the City: Artists Against Racial Prejudice held at the Skylight Gallery of the Center for Arts and Culture of Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. The Mosaic of the City was organized by Artists Against Racial Prejudice (AARP), “a multi-ethnic group [of artists] that formed in reaction to the racial tension that has recently exploded in Brooklyn,” signaling the intraracial conflict between Korean American and African American communities that surfaced with the Family Red Apple boycott. The artists aimed to “create an open forum where issues of racial prejudice can be addressed.” Among the seventy-five participating artists, mostly of Asian or African descent, were Korean American artists Ik-Joong Kang, Mo Bahc, Sung Ho Choi, Taeho Lee, Yeong Gill Kim, Kwangsung Lee, Oh Chi-Gyun, Hoyoon Choi, and William Jung.

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 x 3 inch pieces of paper, put alongside English words and phrases written in red and their Korean translations in blue. Buddha Learning English (1992–1994) was a series that followed, which paired seated Buddha images with a recording of the artist’s voice reciting English phrases sampled from magazines, newspapers, and books.

External Links

Artist's official website

Kang, Ik-Joong on artasiamerica

강익중 on Korean Wikipedia

Kang ik joong on Korea Digital Archives for the Arts (DA-Arts)