Sungho Cho (pictured), an award-winning South Korean jeweler and metalsmith, will be the first Asian artist in residence at the Jewelry Center of New York’s 92nd Street Y (92NY). He is the fifth person awarded the well-regarded annual residency, which allows a jewelry designer to work in New York City.
Cho’s latest works center on metal vessels, natural inspirations, and hammered textures. He has exhibited in Korea, Thailand, the Netherlands, and Germany as well as Milan and London, and is a graduate of Seoul National University, Alchimia in Florence, and the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.
Cho will work at 92NY’s studios from Aug. 21 through Sept. 17. It will be his first long-term stay in New York City, and he tells JCK that is part of the excitement for him as he prepares for the residency.
“Except for a short trip, I have yet to stay in New York, the center of world culture,” Cho says. “I applied with the hope that everything I will experience from a new place will breathe fresh air into my heart.… I’ll try new things by filling my mind with what I’ll see, feel, and experience.”
Cho intends to focus on his wax-rubbing work during the residency. “For years I’ve been developing my own unique approach by using soft wax to create casts with thin, lightweight, and delicate surfaces that resemble paper. I take rubbings of surfaces in places with natural and historical significance. Through this process, the surface of my work becomes a canvas that captures abstract patterns, colorful textures, and implicit narratives,” Cho says.
“In my new body of work, I have selected a range of locations that reflect my personal and national identity, infusing my art with the history of these places. From prehistoric dolmens to Hogyeongam in Bugaksan mountain—a symbol of the division between North and South Korea—I capture significant moments of Korean history spanning millennia,” he says.
“Of course, these documentations of Korea’s bygone years, bearing the marks of time and place, are by no means light,” Cho adds. “By using heated iron and the rubbing technique to draw and merge contrasting images, such as flowers, I create works that blend inspiration and images loaded with history. Where histories of struggle and glory, turbulence and tranquility intersect, the boundaries between time periods blur, and scattered years converge into a single moment of the present.”
This work is meant to “evoke old memories” that go beyond the tactile, the artist says.
“It feels as though history is not just a fleeting moment but has been imprinted on our very bodies. I wish that as people examine the three-dimensional relief texture, which casts shadows and reflects light, the shared memories that reside in their bodies seem to come alive,” Cho says. “This serves as a reminder that both the methodology and external context unique to an artwork can become its core essence.”
Cho was selected for the residency by a jury composed of Christian Larsen, curator, art/design historian, and professor; Emily Stoehrer, the Rita J. Kaplan and Susan B. Kaplan curator of jewelry at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Jonathan Wahl, director of the 92NY Jewelry Center.
“This residency is designed to provide time, space, and facilities for research, experimentation, and the cultivation of new ideas in jewelry and light metalwork—all while giving the artist an immersive experience in the vibrant world of New York City and the 92NY’s arts and culture,” Wahl said in a statement. “We were thrilled to receive applications from around the world, and we’re looking forward to hosting Sungho in August.”
The 92NY jewelry residency is supported by 92NY board member Kathy Chazen. Previous artists in residence were Alexander Blank (2022), Claudia Lepik (2019), Ineke Heerkens (2018), and Göran Kling (2017).
This year’s jury recognized two runners-up for the 2023 residency: Paul Adie and Julia Obermaier, both from Germany.
(Photos courtesy of 92nd Street Y New York)
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