Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Avant Dictee

January 31–April 22, 2018

View artworks and ephemera from the Cha archive at BAMPFA in dialogue with her best-known work, the artist's book Dictee.

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Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Aveugle Voix, 1975; performance, 63 Bluxome Street, San Francisco; BAMPFA, gift of the Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Memorial Foundation. Photo: Trip Callaghan.

Upcoming
Films
Upcoming
Events
Selected
Objects
Past
Films
Past
Events

Selected Exhibition Objects

Artist's book

Pomegranate Offering

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

1975
artist's book, ink stamped on linen, hand-sewn with thread
14 1/2 x 14 3/4 in.
University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; Gift of the Peter Norton Family
1995.47.2
Mixed Media

Repetitive Pattern

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

1975
black ink on cloth sewn with white thread to cloth
46 x 46 in.
University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; Gift of the Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Memorial Foundation
1992.4.59
Mixed Media

Untitled (glass jar)

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

1980
A clear glass jar with lid containing 5 pieces of paper with type-written text and black string.
4 x 4 x 4 in.
University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; Gift of the Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Memorial Foundation
1992.4.31
Video

Re Dis Appearing

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
United States

1977
B&W, sound, 3 min.
BAMPFA, gift of the Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Memorial Foundation

Past Events

Saturday, April 21, 1 PM
Panel Discussion: Re-Seeing Dictee

This panel takes a fresh look at Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s influential book Dictee and its relationship to the rest of the artist’s work.

BAMPFA
Thursday, March 8, noon
Curator’s Talk: Stephanie Cannizzo on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Cannizzo explores Cha’s art through the lens of her influential artist’s book, weaving in Cha’s long history with UC Berkeley and BAMPFA.

BAMPFA

Past Films

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Avant Dictee

January 31–April 22, 2018

The main body of my work is with Language, ‘looking for the roots of the language before it is born on the tip of the tongue.'

—Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Avant Dictee offers viewers an opportunity to experience the work of this prolific artist in a new way, through her best-known work, the artist’s book Dictee. Placing the book as a point of entry into her wider creative production, the exhibition explores resonances between Dictee’s ten thematic sections (nine of them named for the Greek muses) and artworks drawn from the Cha archive at BAMPFA.

The main body of my work is with Language, ‘looking for the roots of the language before it is born on the tip of the tongue.'

—Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Cha’s oeuvre was profoundly interconnected across works and media, and she returned again and again to certain key themes. Avant Dictee includes art and archival documents—artist’s books, photography, concrete poetry, video, performance documentation, mail art, sculpture, and works on paper—in conversation with the chapters in Dictee. Some works are clearly related, such as an image in the book that references the artist’s father’s original calligraphy, seen in the exhibition. Other relationships are less direct, such as a work’s connection to a statement or question posed in the book.

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951–1982) was born in Pusan, South Korea, and emigrated to the United States, settling in San Francisco with her family in 1964. She attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic high school where she learned and fell in love with the French language. Much of the work in the exhibition was created during Cha’s time as a student at UC Berkeley, where she earned four degrees (in comparative literature and art) between 1973 and 1978. Greatly inspired by her professors Jim Melchert, who introduced her to Conceptual and performance art, and Bertrand Augst, who launched her interest in film theory, Cha made a body of work that explores language, memory, time, history, and the spaces in between.

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Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Avant Dictee is organized by Assistant Curator Stephanie Cannizzo and made possible with support from the Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Archive Fund and Young Chul and Elizabeth Cha Park.

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Avant Dictee

January 31–April 22, 2018

Selected Exhibition Objects

Artist's book

Pomegranate Offering

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Mixed Media

Repetitive Pattern

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Mixed Media

Untitled (glass jar)

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Video

Re Dis Appearing

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha United States

Past Events

Panel Discussion: Re-Seeing Dictee

Curator’s Talk: Stephanie Cannizzo on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Past Films

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
United States