Chicago
Thomas Kong, Ed Oh, Sungho Bae, Efrat Hakimi, and Guanyu Xu
September 28 - November 9, 2024
Presented by Casemore Gallery and 062
Opening Reception: September 28, 2024 | 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM at Casemore Gallery

Casemore Gallery is thrilled to partner with Chicago, Illinois, gallery 062 to present Chicago, an exhibition of works from artists Sungho Bae, Efrat Hakimi, Thomas Kong, Ed Oh and Guanyu Xu.

Originally conceived as a solo show of Thomas Kong’s work, his passing in 2023 led to a more expansive approach, reflecting and celebrating his place within Chicago’s growing and tight-knit community of artists and artist-run spaces. In addition to Kong himself, the four other artists included had keen connections with Kong and his art. Working with a variety of media— painting, sculpture, photography, found materials, and works on paper—these artists are additionally united by their use of collage and assemblage. 

Thomas Kong was a prolific self-taught artist and an important figure in Chicago’s AAPI community, where he operated Kim's Corner Food, a locally venerated convenience store in the Rogers Park neighborhood. Over 17 years, Kong created and displayed a massive and always evolving volume of work during the many hours and days he spent at the store. The collages and assemblage pieces he made from repurposed advertising and inventory packaging reflected an uncanny sense of humor and optimism, with many incorporating his signature “Be Happy” stickers. Over 100 of these pieces are featured in the exhibition, many appearing on and attached to the same shelving they had occupied in situ at Kim’s Corner Food’s retail space, as well as in “The Back Room” of the store, which Kong used as an experimental project space and repository for his many thousands of works.

Sungho Bae’s “Index of Chronic Overreliance and Visceral Death” features an oversized green adrenal gland made from monster plush toys, symbolizing chronic stress and alienation. Accompanying paintings, inspired by Renaissance anatomical depictions, obscure the doctors' faces with green stitches, highlighting the horrors of early science and human nature. Along with the installation, Bae’s artist's book, Codex: Archiving the New Mythos, unravels a saga of creation and despair from these monstrously transformed and resurrected artifacts.  

Efrat Hakimi’s “Flora” proposes the identification of 50 specimens from the Wildflowers of Palestine, here given form using replicas, faux-pressed plants, and their impressions. These “specimens” were adapted from photographs held by the Library of Congress as part of the Matson Photography Collection and dated 1900-1920. The common names of the plants are given in Hebrew, Arabic, and English, reflecting Zionist confiscation of Palestine land and appropriation of its lingua into Hebrew to align with their own national ambitions. The “Palestinian Iris,” for example, thus became the “Eretz-Israeli Arum.” Hakimi’s work attempts to keep the histories of these plants known, and their former names from being disappeared in translation. The Arabic names were contributed by Reem Ghanayem, a Palestinian Poet and translator.

Mixing painting’s traditional methods and contemporary notions of time, Ed Oh uses computer and television screenshots to form a pictorial grid. The work utilizes raster images from online streams of the 2023 Asian Cup, the Asian Football Confederation’s quadrennial tournament. Betraying its linear composition and organizing function, the painting colorizes the patchwork structure of identities and cultures cobbled together for competition’s sake.

Guanyu Xu’s “Resident Aliens” presents physical photographic installations of immigrants' interior spaces in layered images—including their belongings, personal photo archives, and pictures of places they captured in this world—to examine their personal histories and complex experiences. In this manner, the project blurs the boundaries between the familiar and foreignness, private and public, belonging and alienation. Resident Aliens is particularly meaningful when considered with his status as a Chinese gay man and the rise of neo-nationalism and xenophobia across the globe.

Artists Bios:

Thomas Kong (1950 - 2023) lived in Chicago, where he and his wife managed Kim’s Corner Food, a convenience store located in the city’s Rogers Park neighborhood. Working in collage and assemblage, Kong’s prolific production occurred entirely at the store during business hours: 7AM to 7PM, seven days a week. Kong received a degree in English Literature from Sogang University in 1972, and moved to the Chicago area in 1977. His work has appeared nationally and internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include Arts For Sale at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo in conjunction with the Tokyo Art Book Fair 2023. 

Sungho Bae was born in Seoul, Korea 1988. In 2013, he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Seoul National University in Seoul, South Korea. In 2021, he received his Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has participated in two-person and group exhibitions at Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NY, as well as the Chicago Arts Commission, 062 Gallery, and Hyde Park Art Center, all in Chicago, IL. In 2020 he received the Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award, from the International Sculpture Center, in Hamilton, NJ. In 2023-2024 he was Artist in Residence at HATCH Art in Chicago, IL.

Efrat Hakimi (b. 1982, Tel Aviv) is a multidisciplinary artist and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. Hakimi works across technologies and crafts. In her works, she studies objects, language, and sites to unpack the narratives and forces that shape them. Hakimi is the recipient of the Lauren and Mitchell Presser Photography Award from the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2020, and the Katz International Photography Award, 2018. Hakimi's exhibitions include the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago; Roots & Culture, Chicago; Hayarkon 19 Gallery, Tel Aviv; Mana Contemporary, Chicago; 062 Gallery, Chicago; and Rosenfeld Gallery, Tel Aviv, among others. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2019), Studied Fine Art at HaMidrasha-Faculty of the Arts, Beit Berl (2016), and holds a BSc. In Mechanical Engineering from Ben-Gurion University, Be’er Sheva, Israel (2010).

Ed Oh was born and raised in Los Angeles, currently living and working in Chicago, IL. His practice is versed in traditional disciplines like painting, drawing, sculpture, and printmaking with bricoleur sensibilities. He is an artist who collects material from daily routines in the forms of objects that are natural and readymade, alive and dead, and particular and universal. Oh has shown found objects, drawings and prints in Art Book fairs while in Chicago, and founded the Terminal Forms Residency, which was inspired by Chicago’s International Airport.

徐冠宇 Guanyu Xu (b.1993 Beijing) is an artist currently based in Chicago and Beijing. He is the recipient of the Chicago DCASE Artist Grant, CENTER Development Grant, Hyéres International Festival Prize, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center Annual Competition, and Kodak Film Photo Award. His works have been exhibited and screened internationally, including the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge; International Center of Photography, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; New Orlean Museum of Art, New Orleans; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Wesleyan University, Middletown; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; 36th Kasseler Dokfest, Germany, and others. His work can be found in public collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Harvard Art Museums, Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, New Orleans Museum of Art, among others. His works have been featured in numerous publications, including The New York Times, ArtAsiaPacific, The New Yorker, W Magazine, Harper's Magazine, Dazed, and China Photographic Publishing House.

About Casemore Gallery:

Casemore Gallery was founded in San Francisco in 2015, and represents local and international contemporary artists and artists’ estates. Represented artists include Jim Goldberg, John Gossage, Todd Hido, Whitney Hubs, Steve Kahn, Sean McFarland Raymond Meeks, Sonya Rapoport, Raymond Saunders, Larry Sultan, Lindsey White, Suné Woods, and Kanoa Zimmerman. Originally founded with a program emphasizing contemporary photography, Casemore Gallery expanded to include representation of artists working in all media.

Image Credit: Chris Grunder