In this lecture, transnational artist Mirae kh RHEE invites us into the long history of the collector and collections from both Asia and Europe. Interrogating presentation and collection practices of the male ruling elite and examining works from collections that extend from the famed Green Vault in Dresden to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, in this multimedia project, the artist is fashioning a new interpretation of the cabinet
of curiosities, which she calls Wunderkammerkŏri, a mash up of German and Korean languages. Wunderkammern, or cabinets of curiosities, arose in mid-16th century Europe as repositories for wondrous objects but gradually appeared in 17th-18th century Qing China and Joseon Korea in the form of Chinese treasure boxes (Duobaoge) and Korean still-life genre painting of books and the scholar’s room (Munbangdo). Working in drawing, painting,
sculpture, installation, participatory practices, and emerging technologies, like augmented reality, the artist speaks about her motivations and exhibition plans.
South Korean born social practice artist (이미래/李未來) Mirae kh RHEE’s transracial life
experiences led her to work between the United States, South Korea and Germany, where learning foreign languages, code-switching, and cultural traditions and customs continuously inform her artwork. Through the lens of transnational feminism and decolonial approaches,
she creates complex research based Gesamtkunstwerk(e) that tell autoethnographical narratives. RHEE received her MFA in Studio Art at the University of California-Irvine, where she was a Graduate Studies Diversity scholar and a Jacob K. Javits fellow. As the current Artist-in-Residence at the Museum für Asiatische Kunst and Ethnologisches Museum, Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, she developed and exhibited her first Augmented Reality
artwork Sammel-Sucht/Collec9ng Crave. Her solo project will be presented at the Museum für Asiatische Kunst in 2024 and at the Residenzschloss Dresden in 2025.