The Korean Peninsula is a region rooted in duality. It is a land both literally and ideologically split down the middle, a lasting result of Cold War-era proxy wars, Western imperialist action, and an on-going brutal dictatorship. And even before the interventions that created the north and south, the peninsula has long been a place of dueling characteristics. The Korean identity has been hard-fought, being constantly re-defined and altered through centuries of alternately Chinese and Japanese colonialist action. This dualistic identity is explored in Helen J Gallery’s current group exhibition of four Korean and Korean-American artists, “Humming to the Sound of Fear.”

The most immediate work upon entering the gallery is the soundscape created by YoungEun Kim. Inspired by the loudspeakers which constantly blare information across the de-militarized zone between North and South Korea, Kim creates her own speaker system. Using only the highest frequencies of famous South Korean love songs, Kim organizes a fragmented and chirping melody, reminiscent of bird calls. This creates an ambient juxtaposition between the natural and man-made, carried through in the works of the other artists.

Two in particular who carry this theme are Jae Hwan Lim and Song Sumin, painters exhibiting a wide body of work in the exhibition. Sumin’s works of acrylic on canvas capture the mountainous ranges of Korea, blanketed in thick canopies, yet streaked across in billowing clouds of smoke. In white stain (2017), we see the smoke stretch across two canvases, first appearing as benign fog until it crashes cataclysmically into the earth, revealing itself to be a missile strike. This conflation of nature and war, violence and serenity, lies at the core of many of Sumin’s works.

Lim’s examination of duality, on the other hand, lies in a simultaneously traditional and radical use of medium, as he applies traditional ink painting techniques to large sheets of plastic. The painted mountain scenes, all inspired from Mt. Kumgang, a mountain which famously acted as a reconciliatory bridge between North and South Korea until 2008. The ink paintings create a familiar mixing of natural and manmade, of new and old, and are striking reminders of the immortality not only of artistic forms but of the plastic we use every day.

Finally, we arrive at the work of Kyle Tata’s photo collage series Lookout Mountain Lab Production Notes. Diving into the archives of the US military backed film producer, Lookout Mountain Lab, Tata examines the far-reaching tendrils of war during the 20th century and the ways in which conflict and propaganda can color every aspect of life.

Across the four artists in “Humming to the Sound of Fear,” we find the myriad of ways that we interact with conflict, nature, and borders both real and psychological.

Helen J. Gallery
929 Cole Ave.
Los Angeles, California 90038
Thru Nov. 6th, 2021