Jinsik Yoo: Procession is on view at Jane Hartsook Gallery, New York
January 12 – February 23, 2024
The Jane Hartsook Gallery is pleased to present new work by Jinsik Yoo. In his solo debut, Yoo uses figurative abstraction to question cultural boundaries, examining the border between myth and reality, the state and its people, and the body and its past or future. Drawing from Korean myths as well as his own experiences, Yoo asks how boundaries are drawn and what it costs to maintain them.
The sculptures in this exhibition reimagine how we experience those boundaries internally and in our relationships with others. One figure captures the moment of transformation in a classical Korean creation myth in which a tiger and a bear beg to become human. Another represents Yoo’s experience as a riot police officer during his mandatory military service, when he was charged to become an embodiment of state power. Still other pieces in this exhibition draw on feelings of joy and liberation Yoo experienced as a queer person moving from South Korea, where he was living in the closet, to the United States. Yoo uses these works to consider how border crossings—across forms, cultural conventions, and space—are essential to existence and to art making.
Jinsik Yoo is a New York-based figurative ceramic sculptor and painter. Yoo earned his MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University and his BFA from Konkuk University in Seoul, South Korea. Recent exhibitions include: the Cincinnati Art Academy (Ohio; 2023), The Clay Studio in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania; 2023), and the Eutectic Gallery (Portland, OR; 2021). His work is held in a number of public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art of Medellin, Colombia and the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum. He is currently a resident artist at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia.
Greenwich House Pottery has held exhibitions of ceramics since as early as 1905, but a permanent exhibition space was not opened until 1970, under the direction of Jane Hartsook (Director, Greenwich House Pottery 1945-1982). The Pottery had long been a hub for amateur and professional artists alike, and the addition of a permanent gallery space reflected how it had developed into an important center for American ceramic arts. Upon her retirement in 1982, the gallery was renamed the Jane Hartsook Gallery in her honor.
The Jane Hartsook Gallery is a permanent gallery space of the Greenwich House Pottery.
Contact
info@greenwichhouse.org
Greenwich House Pottery
16 Jones Street
New York, NY 10014
United States
Photos by Alan Wiener, courtesy Greenwich House Pottery
