Chul Hyun Ahn is a South Korean artist who works primarily with light.

Description

Ahn is a member of a group of young light artists including Olafur Eliasson, Ivan Navarro,

Spencer Finch Spencer Finch (born 1962 in New Haven, Connecticut) is an American artist. After attending The Hotchkiss School, he graduated '' magna cum laude'' with a B.A. in comparative literature from Hamilton College in 1985. Finch then pursued an M.F.A. ...

, and

Leo Villareal Leo Villareal (born 1967) is an American artist. His work combines LED lights and encoded computer programming to create illuminated displays. He is living and working in New York City. Early life and education Villareal was born in 1967 in A ...

. Ahn creates meditations on zen notions of the infinite and the void, which distinguishes Ahn's oeuvre from other artists working with light. Ahn's multiple on-going sculpture series including "Forked Series" and "Tunnel Series" systematically explore the limitations of space and optics. Hilarie M. Sheets, contributing editor of '' ARTnews'' who also writes regularly for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', ''

Art in America ''Art in America'' is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world in the United States, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It i ...

'', and ''

Art + Auction Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of what ...

'', said his work is "At once thrilling and ominous, it suggests a rabbit hole to another world—underwater, outer space, afterlife—or journey to the unknown, the kind of leap of faith involved in the artist’s own passage to an unfamiliar country and language." As a pillar in the resurgence of light art, "Ahn creates sculptures utilizing light, color and illusion as physical representations of his investigation of infinite space." Ahn lives and works in

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, where he is represented by

C. Grimaldis Gallery The C. Grimaldis Gallery is a contemporary and modern art gallery established in 1977 by Constantine Grimaldis. It is the longest continually operating gallery in Baltimore, Maryland. The gallery specializes in post-WWII American and European ...

Biography

Chul Hyun Ahn was born in

Busan Busan (), officially known as is South Korea's most populous city after Seoul, with a population of over 3.4 million inhabitants. Formerly romanized as Pusan, it is the economic, cultural and educational center of southeastern South Korea, w ...

, South Korea. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Chugye University for the Arts in

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...

. In 1997 he moved to the United States and received a Master of Fine Arts from the Mount Royal School at the Maryland Institute College of Art in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

in 2002. Mr. Grimaldis first saw Ahn's work at his 2002 MFA thesis exhibition at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Soon after, he had his first exhibition with C. Grimaldis Gallery in the winter of 2003 in a solo exhibition titled ''Infinity - Emptiness'' which featured six light sculptures. Since 2003 Chul Hyun Ahn has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally, and his work can be found in numerous important private and public collections. In a review of Ahn's 2008 C. Grimaldis Gallery solo exhibition, ''Phenomena: Visual Echo'' art critic Cara Ober wrote: "What does infinity look like? Chul Hyun Ahn's show of thirteen mirrored light boxes (all 2008) answered this question over and over, in subtly different ways. The constructions of plywood and fluorescent light with exposed electrical cords unavoidably recall Donald Judd and Dan Flavin, but Ahn uses these industrial materials to a different end. Rather than clarifying visual phenomena without artifice, Ahn seeks to mystify."

Selected exhibitions

2011 * C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland, ''Illuminated Void'' (solo) * Galerie Paris-Beijing, Paris, France, ''Visual Echo'' (solo) * Kunstraum: Morgenstrabe, Karlsruhe, Germany, ''Touching The Void'' * Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, Delaware, ''Perception/Deception: Illusion In Contemporary Art'' Delaware Art Museum. ''Delaware Art Museum''. 8 December 2011.
2010 * Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, ''Look Again,'' Curator: Steven Matijcio 2009 * C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland, '' A Sculpture Show'' 2008 * Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, ''Momentum: Contemporary Art From The Harn Collection'' * C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland, ''Phenomena: Visual Echo'' (solo) 2007 * C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland, ''New Work'' (solo) * Decker Gallery, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, Maryland, ''Jane & Walter Sondheim Semi-Finalist Exhibition'' 2006 * CPS Gallery, New York, New York * School 33, Baltimore, Maryland, ''Biennial Exhibition'' 2005 * C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland, ''Visual Echoes'' (solo) * Conner Contemporary, Washington, D.C., ''New Work'' (solo) * The Shore Institute of the Contemporary Arts, Long Branch, New Jersey, ''Luminous Recurrence'' 2004 * C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland, ''Infinite Directions'' (solo) 2003 *C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland, Infinity - ''Emptiness'' (solo) 2002 * Conner Contemporary, Washington, D.C., ''Academy 2002'' * CAA Conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, ''Six Degrees In Cold Storage'' 2001 * Gallery Four, Baltimore, Maryland, ''Multiplicity'' 1999 * Creole Gallery, Lansing, Michigan 1996 * Kyung-In Art Museum, Seoul, South Korea, ''New Frontier Exhibition'' * City Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea, ''The Joong-Ang Biennale'' * National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea, ''The 15th Grand Art Exhibition of Korea''C. Grimaldis Gallery. "Chul Hyun Ahn Resume." Cgrimaldisgallery.com. C. Grimaldis Gallery, 2011. Web. 1 Feb. 2012. .

Selected collections

* American Society of Nephrology, Washington, DC * Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, Baltimore, Maryland * Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul, Turkey * Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, Delaware * Hearst Foundation Collection, New York, New York * Marguiles Collection at the Warehouse, Miami, Florida * Marvin and Elayne Mordes Collection, West Palm Beach, Florida * McDonald's Corporation, Washington, DC * Jordon D. Schnitzer Family Foundation, Portland, Oregon * Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, California * Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida * Washington D.C. Convention Center, Washington, DC * Carre de Malberg Private Collection, Paris, France

References

External links