Jinny Yu, Inextricably Ours 23-01, 2023. Oil on aluminum, 152.4 x 139.7 cm. Courtesy of the artist © Jinny Yu.
Located on Level 2 in Gallery 230 and 231
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Jinny Yu makes her AGO debut with an exhibition of new works, including oil on aluminum paintings and works on paper. Born in Korea and now based in Ottawa and Berlin, for the past twenty years, she has been an active professional artist and educator, using abstract and geometric forms to consider the implications of mass migration and rapid social change. In a departure from her usual practice of exclusively using black paint, here Yu uses vivid colours, transparency and distorted forms to continue questioning what it means to be a guest and a host. This exhibition is curated by Georgiana Uhlyarik, Fredrik S. Eaton Curator of Canadian Art, AGO.
In tandem with the exhibition, Goose Lane Editions will publish a bilingual 120-page monographic catalogue featuring essays by Patrick Flores, Ming Tiampo and Georgiana Uhlyarik, and a foreword by Marie-eve Beaupré, addressing Yu’s production beginning with Don’t They Ever Stop Migrating? (2015) presented at the Venice Biennale, until her solo exhibition at the AGO. The launch will take place in September 2024 at the AGO in Toronto and at the Guido Molinari Foundation in Montreal.
Contemporary programming at the AGO is supported by
Born in Seoul, South Korea, in 1976, Jinny Yu’s previous work has been shown widely, including exhibitions in Canada, Germany, Japan, Italy, Portugal, South Korea, UK and USA. She was an artist in residence at La Napoule Art Foundation in France, BoxoPROJECTS in Joshua Tree, the KIAC in Dawson City, ISCP in New York, Seoul Museum of Art Nanji Studios, and at the Banff Centre for the Arts among others. Yu, Professor of painting at the University of Ottawa, was awarded the Mid-Career Artist Award by Ottawa Arts Council in 2013; Laura Ciruls Painting Award from Ontario Arts Foundation in 2012; and was a finalist for the Pulse Prize New York in 2011 and 2014. Her exhibition Don’t They Ever Stop Migrating? was presented as part of the 56th Venice Biennale (2015).
Watch artist Jinny Yu tour her Ottawa studio and talk about her process of working on her artist book Hôte—comprised of a series of 42 drawings she began during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020.
