There Is No Sincerity Without Irony
Exhibition Explores How Sex Is Inherently Intersectional, Necessarily Seen Through Race and Feminism
Title: There Is No Sincerity Without Irony
Date: May 11 – June 8, 2024
Opening: Saturday, May 11, 4-6 pm (Performance by Kyoung eun Kang at 4:30 pm)
Address: AHL Foundation Gallery, 2605 Frederick Douglass Blvd, New York, NY 10030
Curator: Joyce Chung
Participating Artists: Sara Jimenaz, Kyoung eun Kang, Kakyoung Lee, Jiwon Rhie, Hyeree Ro, Kristina Wong, and Kim Ye
New York, NY (April 24, 2024) – AHL Foundation Inc. is pleased to announce the opening of the 2024 AHL-Chun Family Foundation Curatorial Open Call Exhibition: “There Is No Sincerity Without Irony.” The exhibition explores the female reproductive system and its relevant activities through an intersectional framework of race and feminism.
Featuring seven Asian and Asian American female artists, including Sara Jimenaz, Kyoung Eun Kang, Kakyoung Lee, Jiwon Rhie, Hyeree Ro, Kristina Wong, and Kim Ye, the exhibition addresses specific female body parts and corporeal experiences. The works reflect how women’s engagement with their bodies shape and develop their perception of sex and sexual attitude.
The oppression of Asian women’s sexuality is similarly intertwined with culture specific norms such as parental influences, immigration, media play, and identity politics. What are the ways Asian women have claimed their sexual choices and demands, against exoticization, hypersexualization and hierarchy? What compromises have been made surrounding the fetishized Asian female body in relation to male heterosexuality?
“The artists represented here transgress the boundaries set for them by utilizing body knowledge, law, and the methodology of post-colonialism,” says Joyce Chung. “Each work emphasizes how women’s bodies can in turn become a site for building and exercising self-determination and agency.”
“There Is No Sincerity Without Irony” reveals that the absurdities associated with Asian women’s bodies cannot be explained as a simple combination of elements such as misogyny and racism; however, it can be used as a reminder and a tool to produce sincerity, an acknowledgement of the exploitations and a desire to provoke moral certainty and political action to banish the persistent irony. Attuning to vernacular sexuality and feminisms, the exhibition strives to facilitate critical contemplation around the shared pasts, present, and possible futures surrounding women’s bodies.
“There Is No Sincerity Without Irony” will be accompanied by a screening and panel discussion on May 18 about prostitution law in collaboration with Red Canary Song, a collective of Asian & migrant sex workers and allies in New York. The program maps different stakeholders and temporalities as an exercise in liberating notions of what women’s bodies can do.
The exhibition opens with a reception on Saturday, May 11, from 4-6 pm, featuring a performance by Kyoung eun Kang at 4:30 pm. The work explores a woman’s journey of self-discovery and relationship with her body through
It runs through June 8, 2024, at the AHL Foundation Gallery, located at 2605 Frederick Douglass Blvd, New York, NY 10030 (corner of 139th Street). Public hours are Wednesday through Saturday from 12 pm to 6 pm.
For more information, please visit www.ahlfoundation.org or contact info@ahlfoundation.org