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Oakland, CA–August 29, 2008. The works of Korean female artists will be exhibited in The Offering Table: Women Activist Artists from Korea at the Mills College Art Museum from September 6 through December 7, 2008.

Artists Ha Insun, Je Miran, Jung Jungyeob, Kim Myungjin, Kwak Eunsook, Rhu Junhwa, and Yoon Heesu are part of the Seoul-based art collective, Ipgim, whose work reflects the emerging feminist art movement in Korea today.

"These artists are showing aspects of contemporary Korean life that is not shown," said Inson Choy, guest curator and Mills alumna (Class of 1996). "They are living through socio-political changes that show how the traditional Confucian belief system still permeates all social interactions."

Choy said despite rapid modernization in Korea, Confucianism still dictates the moral code of interactions between men and women, placing women behind men. In mixed media installations, folk painting, drawing, and video, the artists explore the history of women's labor, gender roles and representations, and religion. Collectively, their art resonates with a common history of women struggling to find a voice, said Choy.

Often working together under the name Ipgim which loosely translates to "air," the group has participated in numerous projects including the Busan (Korea) Biennale in 2004 with the internationally renowned Guerilla Girls. As successful individual artists they have exhibited their work in major galleries and group shows in Korea, China, Japan, Germany, France, and the United States.

Choy is an independent art historian and curator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her research has focused on the burgeoning feminist art/artists movement in Korea. In the spring of 2001, she curated Reconciling Femininity and Confucianism: Expressions of Contemporary Korean Women Artists, featuring six emerging feminist artists from Korea. She has authored several articles and essays that appear in publications including Art Asia Pacific Magazine, Rain and Thunder: A Radical Feminist Art Journal of Discussion and Activism, and Artwomen.org.

The exhibition will open with a free public reception on Saturday, September 6 from 4:00 to 6:00 pm. For more information visit the museum.

In conjunction with the exhibition, a symposium titled "Places at the Table: Asian Women Artists and Gender Dynamics" will be presented on Saturday, September 13 from 9:00 to 5:00 pm at the Museum Theater, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. A reception at the Mills College Art Museum will follow. For more information: visit the Institute of East Asian Studies website.

The Mills College Art Museum, founded in 1925, is a dynamic center for art that focuses on the creative work of women as artists and curators. The museum strives to engage and inspire the diverse and distinctive cultures of the Bay Area by presenting innovative exhibitions by emerging and established national and international artists. Exhibitions are designed to challenge and invite reflection upon the profound complexities of contemporary culture.

Nestled in the foothills of Oakland, California, Mills College is a nationally renowned, independent liberal arts college offering a dynamic progressive education that fosters leadership, social responsibility, and creativity to approximately 950 undergraduate women and 500 graduate women and men. Since 2000, applications to Mills College have more than doubled. The College is named one of the top colleges in the West by U.S. News & World Report, one of the Best 368 Colleges by the Princeton Review, and ranks 75th among America's best colleges by Forbes.com. Visit us at www.mills.edu.

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Quynh Tran
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