Mina! Cheon!
Korean Pollipop ArtistBorn: 1973, South Korea.
Lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland ︎@minacheonstudio
︎minacheon.com
MINA CHEON (천민정 PhD, MFA) is a Korean-American global new media artist, scholar, and educator who divides her time between Korea and the United States. Cheon has exhibited her political pop art known as “Polipop” internationally and draws inspiration from global media and popular culture to produce work that intersects politics and pop art in evocative ways. While she creates work that ranges in medium from new media, video, installation, performance, and public projects to traditional media of painting and sculptures, the content of the work is in historic alignment to appropriation art and global activism art. In particular, Cheon has worked on North Korean awareness and global peace projects since 2004, and while assuming different artistic pseudonyms for the past twenty years such as Minaliza1000, M-1000, Jae Son, Cheon’s latest avatar and alter ego is a North Korean artist named KIM IL SOON who made her first international public appearance at the Pulse Art Fair NY in 2013. Cheon's states, "As a Korean, the idea of having two artistic identities, South Korean Mina Cheon and North Korean Kim Il Soon, is an obvious reflection on the country’s state of being divided. It makes all the sense in the world that if a country is split so should the artist in practice" in "Sweet Revolution" Artist Organized Art 2014). While Cheon's 2012 mid-career solo show retrospectives were defining points in her career with “POLIPOP: Political Pop Art” at the Sungkok Art Museum in Seoul, Korea and “Polipop and Paintings” at the Maryland Art Place, Contemporary Art Center of Baltimore, Maryland, Kim Il Soon's DPRK POLIPOP: Sweet Revolution has taken full force, showcased over the years with pivotal peace projects including: 2017 solo show "UMMA : MASS GAMES – Motherly Love North Korea" at the Ethan Cohen Gallery in New York; 2014 solo show “Happy North Korean Children” at the Trunk Gallery in Seoul, Korea; and 2014 solo show “Choco·Pie Propaganda: From North Korea with Love” also at the Ethan Cohen Gallery where she has been represented since 2012. When Cheon learned of her family's past history from the Northern regions of Korea, and having visited North Korea in 2004 to the mystical Mt. Kumkang by ways of a state sanctioned tour that crossed the DMZ line from the South to the North, her work took a radical turn and dedication towards North and South Korean issues. The resulting artworks were presented in 2008 solo show “Addressing Dolls” at the C. Grimaldis Gallery in Baltimore and prior to that in the 2005 solo show “Dizz/placement” at the Insa Art Space, Art Council, Seoul, which showcased the unusual split between her interactive media work Half Moon Eyes documenting her travel to North Korea as a portrayal of psychological displacement versus her affinity for grappling with the physical displacement from Western scientific schemas such as the cartesian grid that was the focus of her 2002 New York solo debut in “Groundless” at the Lance Fung Gallery. Participation in group shows include showing at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, DC (2014), the Seoul Olympic Museum of Art, Seoul (2013), St. Mary’s College Boyden Gallery, MD (2013), Korean-American NY Film Festival at Sylvia Wald and Po Kim Art Gallery, NY (2013), The Korus House of The Korean Embassy, DC (2010), Art in Embassies Exhibition at the United States Embassy of Korea, Seoul (since 2009), Kaohsiung Museum of Art, Taiwan (2003), and Fine Arts Center of Korean Culture and Arts Foundation, Seoul (2000). Cheon’s work is in the permanent collection and/or archive at the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), Smith College Museum of Art (MA), Sungkok Art Museum (Seoul), Maryland Art Place (Baltimore), Hirshhorn Museum Video Collection (DC), SSamzie Art Collection (Paju), and EVR e-flux video rental at Museum of Modern Art (Ljubljana). In collaboration with architect Gabriel Kroiz, Cheon was awarded an art commission "Diamonds Light Baltimore" from the Mayor's Office and the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts for Light City Baltimore 2016 and they shared their signaure diamond light sculptures in Baltimore and other places, such as for a workshop presentation at the SeMA Biennale Mediacity Seoul 2016, Glow 2016 Georgetown Washtington DC, and currently installed as a semi-permanent installation at the Maryland Art Place. Other activities include being invited as the inaugural artist for a solo show at the gallery space RE/PUBLIC of Baltimore in 2016, presenting the keynote 15th Annual Miller Lecture in Art and Art History at the Smith College in 2018, and speaking about "Diplomacy Reinvented: Uniting Korea Through Art" at the TEDxJHU, The Johns Hopkins University in 2018. Cheon has also continued her research The Dokdo Project that began in 2008, hoping to revive the project that deals specficially about the relationship of neighboring Asian countries, between the Koreas and Japan, and also related to China. Awarded the 2010 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Unity Week Award for her efforts promoting cultural diversity within and beyond her college, Cheon is a Full-time Professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA); was a visiting professor and lecturer at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea; and a mentor of Art-Uni-On, a global mentorship network by Hyundai Co. and the Seoul National University College of Fine Arts. Cheon received her PhD in Philosophy of Media and Communications from the European Graduate School, European University for Interdisciplinary Studies, Switzerland; has two MFA degrees, one in painting from the Hoffberger School of Painting, MICA and another MFA in Imaging Digital Arts (Intermedia Digital Arts) from UMBC: An Honors University in Maryland; and her BFA is in painting from Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea. With Kroiz, she directed international educational programs in Korea since 2004 and founded and directed the international program for artists and designers MICA KOREA. Cheon's book Shamanism + Cyberspace (Atropos Press, NY and Dresden, 2009), adapted from her PhD dissertation is widely cited for being an original and critical take on instigating the relationship between liminality and virtuality in cyerspace interactions. Her other publications include upcoming critical essay and review "Venice Biennale 2017: Salon des Réfugiés" in Media-N, an essay review "Reporting the Future on New Media Art" on SeMA Biennale Mediacity Seoul 2016 in Media-N and Wolgan Misool, Korea, “The Konglish Critique” in Beyond Critique (Maisonneuve Press, MD, 2013), and she has been a writer for art magazines and journals such as ArtUS (LA), NY Arts Magazine (NY), and Wolgan Misool monthly art magazine (Seoul). Cheon is a correspondent and board member of Artist Organized Art (NY), board member of New Media Caucus an Affiliate Society of the College Art Association (USA), and Associate Editor of Media-N its peer-review academic journal. Recent notable press features and reviews include: Artsy Editorial Voice of America Wall Street International BmoreArt and Wolgan Misool's Artist Review for June 2018. As recently announced in Art Forum, Cheon is invited to participate in the Busan Biennale 2018. Cheon's PORTFOLIO can be viewed on the Baker Artist Portfolios or on the ART PROJECT LIST. Follow Mina Cheon on Facebook Twitter Instagram and for updated news, check out her STUDIO NEWSLETTERS. Mina Cheon Studio is dedicated to scholarly work and art production of contemporary and global, new media political pop art projects and is located in K-Town Studios Baltimore, Maryland. All rights reserved. Copyright © by Mina Cheon Studio 2018.