The Dream of the Audience: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Constance Lewallen (Editor)

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha came of age as an artist in the San Francisco Bay Area of the 1970s, a decade of enormous artistic, cultural, social, and political transformation. Despite her untimely and tragic death, she created an extraordinarily rich and complex body of work that reflected the profound developments of her time and place--including the radical changes in art--and her own cultural alienation. The Dream of the Audience, a touring exhibition organized by the Berkeley Art Museum, showcases the full range of work by this influential yet underrepresented Korean American artist, who worked in media ranging from performance, video, and film to artists' books, mail art, and works on paper and cloth. This book, designed to accompany the exhibition, is an essential reference to Cha's work. It contains three essays that provide an in-depth context to her visual art and the fullest analysis of her work to date. This volume's comprehensive view of Cha's oeuvre illuminates the recurring themes and formal approaches that distinguish her art.

Constance M. Lewallen traces the influences on Cha's development while she was a student at the University of California, Berkeley, and places her work in the context of the artistic and social climate of the San Francisco Bay Area. Lawrence R. Rinder analyzes the theoretical underpinnings of the artist's multileveled and interrelated work. Trinh T. Minh-ha's essay is a poetic evocation of Cha's work as it relates to her ancestry and the suffering of the Korean people under the Japanese colonial policy of deracination. Together the essays show how her rich and original art is informed by a dizzying array of influences--from French film theory to Korean history.

Genres: Poetry, Art, Nonfiction, Photography

183 pages, Hardcover

First published August 29, 2001

About the author

Most famous for her experimental memoir/novel, Dictee, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha is a Korean American writer, filmmaker and performance artist. She was born in Pusan, Korea, during the Korean War, but relocated with her parents to San Francisco, California. The interdisciplinary nature of Dictee, which combines narrative, poetry, movie stills, family photos and an array of other genres and forms, and written in various languages, reflects her own varied education. She attended the University of California at Berkeley, where she earned both an M.F.A. and M.A. (in Comparative Literature). She later relocated to Paris, France, where she studied film and brushed elbows with a number of well-known French filmmakers.

Her life was cut tragically short when, in 1982, just a few days after the publication of Dictee, she was raped and murdered by a stranger in New York City. Dictee received little critical attention until the 1990s, when it was republished by Third Woman Press, but it is now regarded as a classic work of autobiography and a powerful commentary upon American hybridity.

Reviews

[S P · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It’s a dream, one says waking up in silence, and now? One wonders whether one has just dreamt a silence or whether silence is the sound of a dream."

- Trinh T. Minh-ha, 'White Spring'

[joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

i value this book a whole lot.

[annakatrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

saw this show in barcelona years after i missed it in berkeley. i felt a certain sense of closure in seeing her work so far away from home after neglecting to experience it mere blocks from where i had worked. (and for many other reasons i won't go into now). but this show, this book, makes me feel profoundly whole. or more whole than i am, if that makes any sense.

[Minh-Ha · Rating 4 out of 5]

this catalog accompanied a curated show at Berkeley's BAM/PFA -- wonderful essays on Cha's visual art. See especially Trinh T. Minh-ha's essay!

[Mackenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This amazing and beautiful book gives details about theresa cha and the performance aspects of her art career. It's a wonderful book to read in combination with Dictee.