CURATED BY CLARA M KIM

Curated by Clara M Kim, Happy Together is the inaugural exhibition of Tina Kim Gallery’s new space on 21st street. The Exhibition focuses on work made over the last 15 years, taking an ironic turn to reveal the inherent precariousness and fragility that holds Asia together, a continent with no shared language, culture or religion. The exhibition includes work by Kim Beom, Kwan Sheung Chi, Lee Kit, Minouk Lim, Park Chan-Kyong, Pratchaya Phinthong, Ming Wong, and Yang Zhenzhong.

Happy Together considers the diverse artistic practices coming out of Asia, against the backdrop of global forecasts that prognosticate the 21st century as the “Asian Century.” Through a discrete body of artist’s works, the exhibition attempts to demystify grand narratives and complicates the dynamics that shape everday life, including the legacies of colonialism, the cold war, rampant industrialization, and more recently, heated territorial disputes. Happy Together borrows its title from Wong Kar Wai’s 1997 film of the smae name to conjure the transformation of the public and private space amid radical changes. Together, the artists in the exhibition from China, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand, represent a generation negotiating the contradictory intersection between political agenda and everyday realty.

Clara M Kim is an independent curator based in Los Angeles. Recent curatorial projects include Mark Bradford: Tears of a Tree at the Rockbund Art Museum (Shanghai); Paolo Bruscky: Artist Books and Films, 1970-2013 at Galerie Nara Roesler (Sao Paulo), The Mistake Room (Los Angeles) and Another Space (New York); the mid-career survey Abraham Cruzvillegas: The Autoconstruccion Suites at the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Haus der Kunst (Munich) and Museo Jumex and Ampara (Mexico); and An Album: Cinematheque Tangier a project by Yto Barrada and Minouk Lim; heat of Shadows both at the Walker Art Center. Kim was formerly senior curator at the Walker Art Center (2011-13) and Director/Curator of Gallery at REDCAT in Los Angeles (2007-11).