Joo Myung Duck (b. 1940), Seoul, 2011, archival pigment print, 20 x 30 inches, Edition 1 of 15, Signature in Certificate © Joo Myung Duck / Datz Museum of Art & Miyako Yoshinaga Gallery

Joo Myung Duck: Sensory Space in Photography and its Conversation with Korean Abstract Painting
March 8 – April 13, 2024
Asia Week Hours: Mar 14-23, 11am-6pm (otherwise by appointment)
Opening Reception: Friday, March 15, 6-8pm
Talk by Dr. Yuri Doolan: Tuesday, March 19, 6:30pm
24 East 64th Street, 3rd Floor

MIYAKO YOSHINAGA is pleased to open Joo Myung Duck: Sensory Space in Photography and its Conversation with Korean Abstract Painting on Friday, March 8th during this season of Asia Week New York.  Originally known for social documentaries in his black-and-white photographs, Korean artist Joo Myung Duck (b. 1940) developed a series of densely “black” landscapes in the 1980s and the 1990s. In 2011, at age 71, Joo explored color photography, primarily focusing on the urban locality intertwined with colors, patterns, and textures. In the series, Joo employs close-looking and erases reality through the practice of abstract art to create sensory space. The exhibition also strives to shed light on this master photographer’s relationship with Korean abstract art, particularly, the Dansaekhwa movement and its artists, investigating their shared aesthetic, methodology, and philosophy.

Joo Myung Duck (b. 1940), Seoul, 2011, archival pigment print, 20 x 30 inches, Edition 1 of 15, Signature in Certificate

In addition to the opening reception during Asia Week, the gallery will host a talk by Dr. Yuri Doolan about his book ‘The First Amerasians,’ which offers a fascinating historical background behind Joo’s Mixed Names series. Dr. Doolan will tell the heartbreaking story of how Americans created and used the concept of the “Amerasian” to remove thousands of mixed-race children from their Korean mothers in US-occupied South Korea to adoptive US homes during the 1950s and 1960s. His talk will explore the Cold War ideologies undergirding this so-called rescue and show how this process of removal and placement via US refugee and adoption laws profoundly shaped the lives of mixed-race Koreans and their mothers. Dr. Doolan is an Assistant Professor of History and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the inaugural chair of the Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies Program at Brandeis University.

To RSVP for the talk, email: [email protected]

To learn more, click here.