Hayoun Kwon: Virtually Real
Presented by Los Angeles Filmforum and GYOPO
Sunday, December 10, 2023
7:30 PM PST
 
2220 Arts + Archives
2220 W. Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA
 
Los Angeles Filmforum and GYOPO are thrilled to welcome internationally acclaimed media artist Hayoun Kwon to present her immersive digital animation work in her first solo screening in Southern California. Originally from South Korea, Paris-based Kwon employs numerous tools – including first-person game engines, VR, and various forms of CG – to conjure worlds both real and imagined in a startling documentary mode that blurs the lines between evidence and speculation. Kwon is a rare artist whose dazzling visuals and technological engagement are fully matched and dimensionalized by her powerfully critical perspective and subtle conceptualizing and framing of her subject matter.

Her early breakout film Lack of Evidence (2011), conjures landscapes and spaces of uncertain stability in telling the dramatic story of a young Nigerian’s application for asylum in France. In three remarkable pieces from 2013-2015, Kwon examines the border and DMZ between North and South Korea, allowing three very different technical and aesthetic strategies to enable deep critical and poetic investigation of the implications of this highly politicized frontier. In her more recent work, her subjective and vivid documentary mode of inquiry has employed VR and interactivity as the spectator inhabits fantastic but complex landscapes of unexpected social and political resonance.

With support from the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, Filmforum has been honored to commission a new work from Hayoun Kwon, and this film,The Butterfly Dream, will have its premiere in our screening, followed by an in-person discussion with Kwon and filmmaker, curator, and film preservationist, Mark Toscano.

Exhibition Walkthrough with Artist Mirae kh RHEE and Curator Rachel Jans 친구들하고/With Friends Video Screening
Co-presented with Korea Arts Foundation of America (KAFA) and Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles (KCCLA)
Saturday, December 2, 2023
11 AM – 2 PM PST
 
Korean Cultural Center Los Angeles Art Gallery – 2nd Floor
5505 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90036
 
GYOPO is excited to co-present with the Korea Arts Foundation of America (KAFA) and the Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles (KCCLA) programming on the occasion of Missing Merope, the 18th KAFA Awardee exhibition.
 
Artist Mirae kh RHEE and curator Rachel Jans will lead an intimate tour of Missing Merope, followed by a conversation. After a refreshment break, join us for 친구들하고/With Friends, a screening of experimental video works by RHEE, kimura byol, Joy Dietrich, Eunha Lovell, Alex Myung, Leah Nichols, and KimSu Theiler. Mirae kh RHEE invited international Overseas Adopted Korean artist friends, old and new, to contribute their short experimental moving images that challenge and inspire our community with themes of racial, cultural, gender and sexual identity, belonging, naming, kinship, and empowerment.
 
*Missing Merope exhibition will be on display at KCCLA until December 1, 2023. Monday to Friday from 10 AM – 5 PM PST 
*Parking lot available for attendees.