Mo Bahc

Bahc Yiso (, 23 June 1957 – 26 April 2004), also known as Mo Bahc, was a South Korean visual artist, cultural organizer, curator, theorist, and educator.

He went by three first names during his lifetime; while Cheol-ho was his legal name, he adopted the name Mo during his time in New York, which he changed to Yiso when he returned to South Korea. Both of the adopted names indicate his self-identification of being displaced or on the periphery, which he had hoped to be a position of privilege "with more freedom to do something unexpected."

In New York, he was noted as the founder and director of Minor Injury, an alternative space in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and a co-founder of SEORO Korean Cultural Network, a Korean American artists' network that bridged Korean American artists of various immigration backgrounds. His works produced in New York reflect his engagement with the time's political and cultural movement addressing the systemic marginalization of minority groups and questioning issues surrounding race and identity.

His time in Korea is said to have been a prolific period for Bahc as an artist, producing works beyond the realm of identity politics. Bahc's interested in reforming Korea's art education system also led him to lecture drawing at SADI, among other universities. Bahc has been credited as a critical figure in Korea's contemporary art scene, especially for introducing the American discourse of poststructuralism or critical postmodernism by his writing and translation work.

Early life Bahc was born in Busan as the youngest to a family of six children and given the name Cheol-ho . Following the promotion of his father who worked for The Republic of Korea National Red Cross, the family moved from Busan to Seoul in 1967. Bahc's chronic health issues posed difficulties for him attending high school, especially participating in the military training that was compulsory at the time. After dropping out, Bahc took and passed the Korean High School Graduation Equivalency Examination, known in Korean as geom-jeong-go-shi .

Education Bahc studied painting at Hongik University, graduating in 1981, the year following the Gwangju Uprising. In 1982, Bahc moved to New York City to further pursue his studies at Pratt Institute, where he earns an MFA degree in May 1985.

Career

In New York City: 1982–1994 One of his first notable works, Mo Bahc's Fast After Thanksgiving Day (1984) was performed after attending a Thanksgiving dinner, fasting for three days, and crossing the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan, as he dragged behind him a plastic-molded rice pot by a rope tied around his neck. At the time of the performance, Bahc takes the name "Mo ," a Korean term used to address a person when their first name is unknown or undisclosed.

Minor Injury

Upon graduating from Pratt Institute, Bahc moves to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, as did many young artists who were attracted to the area for its cheap rent prior to the area's gentrification. There he renovates what was previously a warehouse into studio spaces with fellow Korean artists and Pratt Institute alumni Sung Ho Choi and Il Lee. It is also in Greenpoint where he co-founds the alternative art space Minor Injury in 1985, running it with co-founder Sam Binkley and later co-director Dave Hornor until the end of 1989. His interest in alternative exhibition spaces had stemmed from the experience of interning at the Artist Space during his last semester at Pratt Institute and reading articles written by Robert Longo, artist and co-founder of Hallwalls. His aims for Minor Injury were to find ways to resist the capitalist art world. Located at 1073 Manhattan Ave, Minor Injury sought out its audience amongst Greenpoint's residents, who were predominantly Polish immigrants, and operated by volunteers to minimize its dependency on outside funding. These criteria were not set to simply promote artists of specific identities but to present the minor, social, political, and personal voices that were marginalized or excluded from the mainstream. Bahc himself curated shows at Minor Injury, such as Ego Show (Self Portrait by Anybody) (1985) and The Super Ego Show: A Landmark in the Evolution of Mankind (1987), that eliminated the traditional selection process and allowed exhibiting the works of those without professional art education, including children.

Minor Injury also hosted a number of shows by independent curators and artists, notably Homeland: A Palestine Quest (April 30–May 21, 1989), organized by artists Yong Soon Min and Shirin Neshat, Bahc assisted Hyuk Um and art critic Wan Kyung Sung curating Min Joong Art: A New Cultural Moment from Korea (September 29–November 5, 1988) at the Artists Space, further garnering attention to the Korean art movement. SEORO, meaning "each other" or "one another" in Korean, connected artists of Korean heritage who were either US-born or recent immigrants, Among the growing Korean artist's community in New York, Bahc, Sung Ho Choi, as well as Yong Soon Min were among those instrumental in organizing exhibitions, symposia, and programs that discussed what constituted as Korean American art or Korean art in the US. Bahc led SEORO's proposal of and participation in the exhibition Across the Pacific: Contemporary Korean and Korean American Art, which has been considered the most notable accomplishment made by the Korean Cultural Network. Homo Identropous (1994), rendering a figure sitting upon a divided table, has been considered his final point in addressing the continued yet futile search for one's identity. Nevertheless, all of such works attested to Bahc's exposure to postcolonial, feminist, and postmodern theories, as well as to the time's raging identity politics and multiculturalism during his time in New York. Bahc's interest in writing as well as critical discourse can be traced back to 1987. Having set up a study group among his close Korean associates, the members took turns in selecting, translating, and discussing texts, such as Fredrick Jameson's "Postmodernism and Consumer Society" (1983) and Allan Sekula's "Dismantling Modernism, Reinventing Documentary" (1976).

Death While teaching, translating, producing as well as exhibiting his works prolifically, Bahc died of a heart attack on 26 April 2004 at the age of 47.

Exhibitions

Selected exhibitions curated by Bahc at Minor Injury:

Ego Show (Self Portrait by Anybody), November 20–December 22, 1985 Not Simple: the Human Emotional Complex, April 19–May 4, 1986 The Super Ego Show: A Landmark in the Evolution of Mankind, January 10–February 1, 1987 Trans Ego Show, November 12–December 11, 1988

Selected group exhibitions:

Roots to Reality: Asian America in Transition, October 11–November 24, 1985, Henry Street Settlement with the Alliance for Asian American Arts and Culture Selections, September 18–October 18, 1986, Artists Space, NY A Decade of the Marketplace, 1990, Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY Public Art in Chinatown, May 20–June 21, extended to July 1988, Asian American Arts Centre, NY Immigrant Show, October 19–November 10, 1988, Alpine Gallery, NY Project DMZ, November 1988, Storefront for Art and Architecture, NY CHINA June 4, 1989, Asian American Arts Centre, NY The Mosaic of the City, 1990, the Center for Art and Culture of Bedford Stuyvesant, NY CommuNYCations: Public Mirror: Artists Against Racial Prejudice, September 13–October 7, 1990, Clocktower, NY And He Was Looking for Asia: Alternatives to the Story of Christopher Columbus Today, 1992, Asian American Arts Centre, NY 5th Havana Biennial, 1994, Havana, Cuba Beyond the Borders, February 18–June 12, 1994, Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY 2nd Gwangju Biennale, Unmapping the Earth, 1997, Gwangju, Korea 4th Taipei Biennale, Site of Desire, June 13–September 6, 1998, Taipei, Taiwan 1st Yokohama Triennale, 2001, Yokohama, Japan 50th Venice Biennale, Korean Pavilion, Landscape of Differences, 2003, Venice, Italy Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Korea, 2009, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA Painting and Writing, Hanlim Museum, Dai-jeon. 1998 Defrost, Sunjae Museum of Art, Kyongju.

Solo exhibitions

Speak America, 1990, Bronx Museum, New York Bahc Mo, 1995, Kumho Museum of Art; Gallery Samtuh, Seoul, Korea Artists in Forties: Bahc Yiso, December 22, 2001 – January 7, 2002, Alternative Space Pool, Seoul, Korea Bahc Yiso, 2002, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, Korea Fallayavada: Bahc Yiso Project and Tribute, October 27–November 23, 2005, the University Art Gallery of University of California, Irvine. Curated by Yong Soon Min, realizing a mixed media installation work he detailed in his notes prior to his death. Divine Comedy: A Retrospective of Bahc Yiso, March 10–May 14, 2006, the Rodin Gallery, Seoul, Korea. Yiso Bahc: Lines of Flight, August 20–October 23, 2011, Artsonje Center, Seoul, Korea. Co-curated by Sunjung Kim and Jung Un Kim. Yiso Bahc: Something for Nothing, April 19–June 1, 2014, Artsonje Center, Seoul, Korea Bahc Yiso: Memos and Memories, July 26–December 16, 2018, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Korea, Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, Korea

Selected works

Mo Bahc's Fast After Thanksgiving Day (1984) Untitled (1986) Capital=Creativity (1986/1990) Weed (1988) Speaking English (1990) Exotic-Minority-Oriental (1990) Three Star Show (1994) Homo Identropus (1994) UN Tower (1997) Big Dipper in Eight Stars (1997–1999) Untitled (One Pyong) (2001) Your Bright Future (2002) World's Top Ten Tallest Structures in 2010 (2003) Wide World Wide (2003) We Are Happy (2004)

Awards

Korean Honors Scholarship, Korean Embassy, Washington D.C., 1983 Fellowship in Painting, New York Foundation of the Arts, NY, 1989 Yaddo Art Colony Residency, Saratoga Springs, NY, 1990 Macdowell Art Colony Residency, Peterborough, NH, 1991 Visual Artist Award in Painting, National Endowment for the Arts, 1991 Artpace International Artist Residency Program and Exhibition, San Antonio, TX, 2000 Hermes Korea Prize for Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea, 2002 Art Council Korea (ARKO), Korea, 2006