Germaine Koh

Germaine Koh (born 1967) is a Malaysian-born and Canadian conceptual artist based in Vancouver. Her works incorporate the artistic styles of neo-conceptual art, minimalism, and environmental art, and is concerned with the significance of everyday actions, familiar objects and common places.

Koh is an independent curator and partner in the independent record label Weewerk. She also used to be an assistant curator of contemporary art at the National Gallery of Canada. Her exhibition history includes th
Baltic Centre (Newcastle)De Appel (Amsterdam)
Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Para/Site Art Space (Hong Kong), Frankfurter Kunstverein
Bloomberg Space (London)The Power Plant (Toronto)
Seoul Museum of Art, Artspace (Sydney), The British Museum (London)
the Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver)
Plug In ICA (Winnipeg)
Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto)
and the Liverpool, Sydney and Montréal biennials.

Early life and education

Koh was born in George Town, Malaysia. She emigrated to Canada with her family at the age of two and was raised in Armstrong, British Columbia. Koh received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in studio in 1989 and theory and history of art in 1990 at the University of Ottawa. She later obtained a Master of Fine Arts in 1993 from Hunter College in New York.

Art career

Koh's work draws the use of everyday objects and familiar concepts in order to examine how people interact with those they encounter while moving through the world. For example, her piece "Call", is an old telephone in a public space. When the phone is picked up it randomly dials a number of a participant that has agreed to have conversations with strangers at any time of the day.

There isn't a typical "Germaine Koh" piece - she utilizes many different materials for every piece she creates, yet each piece encompasses an ideology, perhaps best said by Koh herself in a Rhizome.org interview:

Artistic styles and works

Koh's work encompasses the artistic styles of conceptual art, environmental art, and minimalism. In an on-going work titled ''Knitwork'' (1992-present), Koh unravels used garments and re-knits the materials into one larger and constantly evolving object. This piece demonstrates characteristics of environmental art through Koh's use of recycled materials and the ways in which she turns used and discarded items into a working piece of art. In a similar artwork called ''Lumber'' (1991-1994, dispersed 2002), Koh makes use of flexible pieces of recuperated lumber glazed with oil and marine varnish to be installed alongside select architecture. Various projects by Koh are also collaborative or rely on the active participation of its audiences. One example of such works include an art gallery titled "ad hoc gallery" which was put on display in collaboration with Geoffrey Brown from 1993-1994.
An example of one which incorporates its participants into the art piece itself is ''League'', which began in 2012 and is categorized as a "participatory project". Koh describes ''League'' as "an open group of people who gather regularly to play sports and games invented or conceived by members of the community ... The project is founded in a belief in the value of emergent behaviour and the process of making sense of things." Koh emphasizes games, sport, and play as forms of problem-solving which focus on the mental over the physical and the processes of learning, adapting, and evolution through iteration as central to the overall concept of the project.

Koh combines both making use of discarded or found items and active participation in a project called ''Sightings'' (1992–1998), which involved the commercial printing and publishing of images found in public as postcards. These postcards closely interacted with the individuals they reached, drawing emphasis on the ideas of making art out of common everyday objects and experiences as well as recognizing the uniqueness of common places.

Other projects

In addition to her artistic work, Koh is co-founder of the Toronto-based record label and artist-management company Weewerk. She is also an athlete. Koh played varsity volleyball and badminton at the University of Ottawa and is a former captain of roller derby team the Terminal City All-Stars. Her interest in the relationship between creativity and athleticism resulted in the creation of ''The Koh-Verchere Award for Athletic and Creative Excellence'', an Emily Carr University of Art and Design student award, and the establishment of Vancouver's ''League''. Koh was part of the design team for the No. 2 Road North Drainage Pump Station in Richmond B.C., which was awarded the Public Works Association of British Columbia 2018 Project of the Year award. In 2018, Koh became the first artist-in-residence in the City of Vancouver engineering department.

Solo exhibitions

*Crowd Shyness, Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery, Vancouver, 17 July – 16 August 2020
*Home Made Home, Evergreen Cultural Centre, 14 September – 4 November 2018
*Home Made Home, Richmond Art Gallery, 17 June – 26 August 2018, Curated by Nan Caponga.
*Home Made Home, Kelowna Art Gallery, Kelowna BC, Curator: Liz Wylie.
*Lively Objects: Enchantment and Disruption, Museum of Vancouver, 16 August 2015
*FUSE, Vancouver Art Gallery, 29 November 2013
*Culture + Community Symposium, Vancouver, 26 October 2013
*Germaine Koh: Weather Systems, Kamloops Art Gallery, Kamloops 6 April to 15 June 2013
*Germaine Koh - Knitwork; Germaine Koh/Gordon Hicks - There, Here, Galerie B-312, Montreal 2012
*The Haunting, Invaliden 1 Galerie, Berlin, 2010
*Fallow, Charles H Scott Gallery, Vancouver BC, Feb-Mar 2009
*Germaine Koh, Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver BC, Apr-May 2008
*Overflow, Centre A, Vancouver BC, Jan-Feb 2007
*Germaine Koh: Call and Relay, Video Pool, Winnipeg MB, Oct-Nov 2007
*Germaine Koh, Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa ON, Aug-Oct 2006
*Relay: an intervention into the fabric of the Baltic building, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, July - September 2005
*Marks and Relay, Tate Biennial, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, England, 2004
*Germaine Koh: about around, Gallery One One One, University of Manitoba

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