Kyung-hwa Choi-ahoi

Kyung-hwa Choi-ahoi (; born 1967 in Seoul) is a South Korean graphic artist, author and university teacher living in Germany, with a focus on drawing. From 2015 to 2019, she was a professor for drawing at the University of the Arts Bremen and has been a professor for drawing at the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin since 2019. She lives in Hamburg and Berlin.

Life

Choi-ahoi went to Germany in 1991 to attend university, first in Trier and Mainz, where she started with studies in art history, philosophy and Latin. In 1994 she changed universities and her major: she enrolled in art classes at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg with KP Brehmer, Werner Büttner and Fritz W. Kramer. Her last name is a pseudonym, a pun that plays with Hamburg’s status as an important harbor city, because Hamburg was her first home in Germany. In 1998 she completed a stage design internship at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg in the production Blau in Blau (Blue in Blue), directed by Stefan Moskov. From 1999 to 2000, she spent a semester abroad on an Erasmus scholarship at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna with Franz Graf.

In 2001, Choi-ahoi was awarded the Karl H. Ditze Prize in Hamburg for her diploma work. From 2001 to 2003, after graduating, she completed postgraduate studies with Werner Büttner. Since 2011, Choi-ahoi has been working as a university lecturer alongside her own artistic work, initially as a lecturer in drawing at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Design, Media and Information. In 2015 she accepted a professorship for drawing at the University of the Arts Bremen in the master studio of the School of Visual Combinations, which artistically combines the fields of typography, drawing, editorial design and publishing.

She is married to a former fellow student from her years at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg, the Greek painter Nikos Valsamakis. She lives in Hamburg and Berlin.

Works

Kyung-hwa Choi-ahoi's work combines elements of drawing and recording to create an art form of its own. "From an early age, she combined drawings with poetic journaling—a practice she has continued to this day", wrote the German art historian Belinda Grace Gardner. "The diary drawings that have become her trademark have been emerging since the first semester, when she began to produce drawings on five to ten A4 sheets of paper every day." To date she has created thousands of diary drawings; in 2021 their number reached over 8,000. Each drawing is typewritten and dated on the front. More than 200 diary drawings are part of the collection of the Hamburger Kunsthalle, where Choi-ahoi had her first solo exhibition in 2001 titled Fern und Nah (Far and Near).

Since 2000 she has also been working continuously on the drawing project Enzyklopädie Personae (Encyclopedia Personae), a drawn social history of her time. It contains quick sketches of people from her environment, whom she follows for a day—from getting up to going to bed—in a drawn documentation. Later, she published other artist books, such as Lieber Geld (Rather/Dear Money), published in 2014, which journalist Anna Brenken described as "a mosaic that is as curious as it is poetic". In it, Choi-ahoi proves her "invaluable talent for discovering the great world theater in a small form in everyday life". In the afterword to Von Hamburg nach Wien und zurück: Tag.Buch.Zeichnung 1999 und 2000 (From Hamburg to Vienna and back: Day.Book.Drawing 1999 and 2000), published by Textem Verlag in 2020, publisher Michael Glasmeier writes:

Awards and prizes 2001: Karl H. Ditze Prize 2014: Sella Hasse Art Prize, Hamburg

Fellowships and residencies 2002: Fellowship Künstlerhäuser Worpswede 2004: Hamburg Work Grant 2004: Fellowships Künstlerhaus Lauenburg 2005: Hans-Günther-Baass-Grant, Hamburg 2005: Fellowship of Künstlerdorf Schöppingen 2007: Fellowship Künstlerhaus Cismar Abbey 2011: Art Residency in Bad Gastein 2013: Fellowship at Künstlerhaus Schloss Ritzebüttel, Cuxhaven

Exhibitions (selection) Solo exhibitions 2001: Fern und Nah, Hamburger Kunsthalle 2003: himmelblau, Kunstverein Rügen 2003: Pigment ohne Zucker, Art and Henle Gallery, Berlin 2004: 20 December 2004, ProjecteSD Gallery, Barcelona 2004: tag.buch.zeichnung, Gruppe Grün Gallery, Bremen 2004: redwine from chile, Künstlerhaus Lauenburg 2006: 18 March 2005, Künstlerhaus Hamburg 2010: In Wort und Zeichnung, Kramer Fine Art Gallery, Hamburg 2013: Heitere Tage, Kunstverein Schallstadt 2014: Mutterkorn, Hengevoss-Dürkop Gallery, Hamburg 2015: Augen äpfeln, Nasen blühn, Heine-Haus, Hamburg 2020: Ovar, Hengevoss-Dürkop Gallery, Hamburg

Group exhibitions 1998: Knapp getroffen ist auch daneben, Kunstverein Kehdingen 1999: Die Bücher der Künstler, Library of Academy of Fine Arts Vienna 1999: Similar Grounds, Kampnagel KX, Hamburg 1999: Kunst in der Börse, Handelskammer Hamburg 2000: Nägel mit Zöpfen, Palais of Contemporary Art, Glückstadt (Palais für aktuelle Kunst Glückstadt) 2004: Kunst in Hamburg. Heute, Hamburger Kunsthalle 2004: Stipendiaten 2004, Westwerk, Hamburg 2006: Kunst in Hamburg. Heute ll, Hamburger Kunsthalle 2006: Lulea Sommer Biennale, Schweden 2007: Unfair '07, Ileana Tounta Gallery, Athens 2007: keine Zeichnung, kein Zeichner, Kunstverein Rügen 2007: Particules libres – nouvelle, Cité internationale des arts Paris 2008: Wir nennen es Hamburg, Kunstverein Hamburg 2008: present perfekt / portraits, Martin Asbæk Projects Gallery, Copenhagen 2010: Nominierter Index, Kunsthaus Hamburg 2010: Da Hood II, Gängeviertel Hamburg 2013: Zeichnung pur, Hengevoss-Dürkop Gallery, Hamburg 2014: Chill Out!, Hengevoss-Dürkop Gallery, Hamburg 2014: Bremer Kunstfrühling, site of the former freight yard (Güterbahnhof) Bremen 2015: Erinnerung, Hengevoss-Dürkop Gallery, Hamburg 2016: Hoehen Rausch, Eigen+Art Lab Gallery, Berlin 2016: Literatur in den Häusern der Stadt, C15 Lohmann Collection, Hamburg 2016: Nachbilder der Erinnerung, Frise Künstlerhaus Hamburg 2017: La Cuisine Allmonde, Galerie du Tableau, Marseille 2017: Künstlerbücher für Alles, Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst Bremen 2017: Eros, Hengevoss-Dürkop Gallery, Hamburg 2017: Immer Ärger mit den Großeltern, Künstlerhaus Sootbörn und Kunsthaus Dresden 2018: Stuttgart Sichten, Deichtorhallen Hamburg 2019: Envisioning America, Hengevoss-Dürkop Gallery, Hamburg 2019: Aufenthaltswahrscheinlichkeiten, Flag Studio, Osaka 2019: The Bangkok Triennale International Print and Drawing 5, Bangkok 2020: Eye of Mobile, Onkaf Gallery, New Delhi

Publications (1999) Buchstäbliche Zeichnung – Zeichnerische Buchstaben. Edition Zeichnung, Material 104. Hamburg: Materialverlag. . (2008) Kunstraum Heidorf (ed.): Cook and People. Erinnerungen an eine Stadt. Hamburg: Strodehner Presse. . (2010) Augenarzt und Uhrmacher. Hamburg: Textem Verlag. (2014) Lieber Geld. Hamburg: Textem Verlag. . (2020) Von Hamburg nach Wien und zurück: Tag.Buch.Zeichnung 1999 und 2000. Hamburg: Textem Verlag. . (2021) Drawings in: Insa Härtel (ed.): Reibung und Reizung: Psychoanalyse, Kultur und deren Wissenschaft. Hamburg: Textem Verlag. .

Literature (2011) von Goetz, Andrea (ed.): Kunstresidenz Bad Gastein – Stipendiaten 2011. Hamburg: VGS Art. . (2020) Kramer, Fritz W.: Unter Künstlern. Erkundungen im Lerchenfeld. Bemerkungen zu werdenden Künstlern. Series: Campo. Hamburg: Textem Verlag. .