{{Short description|Korean American artist (1953–2024)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=March 2024}} {{Infobox person | name = Yong Soon Min | native_name = 민영순 | native_name_lang = ko | birth_date = {{Birth date|1953|04|29}} | birth_place = Bugok, South Korea | death_date = {{Death date and age|2024|03|12|1953|04|29}} | death_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S. | alma_mater = University of California, Berkeley (BA, MA, MFA) | known_for = installation art, photography, printmaking, mixed media | module = {{Infobox Korean name/auto|child=yes |hangul = %민영순 }} }}
'''Yong Soon Min''' ({{Korean|hangul=민영순}}; April 29, 1953 – March 12, 2024) was a South Korean-born American artist, curator, and educator.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=Yong Soon Min|url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100159240|url-access=limited|access-date=November 14, 2021|website=Oxford Reference|publisher=Oxford University Press|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Kim|first=Elaine H.|date=1996|title="Bad Women": Asian American Visual Artists Hanh Thi Pham, Hung Liu, and Yong Soon Min|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3178131|journal=Feminist Studies|volume=22|issue=3|pages=573–602|doi=10.2307/3178131|jstor=3178131|issn=0046-3663|url-access=limited|hdl=2027/spo.0499697.0022.313|hdl-access=free}}</ref> She served as professor emeritus at the University of California, Irvine. Her artwork deals with issues including Korean-American identity, politics, personal narrative, and culture.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Cotter|first=Holland|date=June 19, 1998|title=Art In Review: Yong Soon Min 'Bridge of No Return'|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/19/arts/art-in-review-498050.html|access-date=November 14, 2021|issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Hallmark|first=Kara Kelley|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=932dMZiWUfgC|title=Encyclopedia of Asian American Artists|date=2007|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-33451-1|pages=125|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite book|last1=Sorensen|first1=Clark W.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BmM-AwAAQBAJ|title=The Journal of Korean Studies, Volume 17, Number 1 (Spring 2012)|last2=Baker|first2=Donald|date=June 21, 2012|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-1-4422-3333-1|pages=159|language=en}}</ref> Min was active in New York City and Los Angeles.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Gomez-Pena|first1=Guillermo|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mr1PAAAAMAAJ|title=The Decade Show: Frameworks of Identity in the 1980s|last2=Deitcher|first2=David|last3=Golden|first3=Thelma|date=1990|publisher=Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art|isbn=978-0-915557-68-4|pages=124|language=en|author-link=Guillermo Gómez-Peña}}</ref><ref name=":1" />
== Biography == Yong Soon Min was born on April 29, 1953, in Bugok, South Korea.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{cite web |last1=Stahr |first1=Celia |title=Min, Yong Soon |url=https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/display/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7002021836 |website=Grove Art Online |access-date=March 20, 2024 |language=en |doi=10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T2021836 |date=October 20, 2006|isbn=978-1-884446-05-4 }}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web|last=|first=|title=Min, Yong Soon, 1953-|url=https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/nr97018955.html|access-date=November 14, 2021|website=The Library of Congress, LC Linked Data Service: Authorities and Vocabularies}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite book|last=Machida|first=Margo|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fXxIinwl5hQC|title=Unsettled Visions: Contemporary Asian American Artists and the Social Imaginary|date=January 23, 2009|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=978-0-8223-9174-6|pages=150|language=en}}</ref> Her family immigrated to the United States in 1960, settling in Monterey, California.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Taus-Bolstad|first=Stacy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g6Tw_NPEe58C|title=Koreans in America|date=January 1, 2005|publisher=Lerner Publications|isbn=978-0-8225-4874-4|pages=66|language=en}}</ref> Min met her father for the first time around age eight, because he had moved to the United States earlier than the rest of the family.<ref name=":1" />
Min attended the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), where she received her B.A. degree (1975), M.A. degree (1977), and M.F.A. degree (1979).<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":1" /> One of her classmates at UC Berkeley was artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Cheung|first1=King-Kok|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6v659OPjoKIC|title=An Interethnic Companion to Asian American Literature |publisher=Cambridge University Press |date=1997|isbn=978-0-521-44790-4|pages=174–176|language=en}}</ref> In 1981, Min was part of the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art.<ref name=":1" />
Min was married to artist Allan deSouza in 1992, whom she often collaborated with on artwork.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /> They were divorced before her death.<ref name=":6" />
In 2001, she was awarded the Anonymous Was A Woman Award.<ref name=":4" /> Other awards include the Fulbright Fellowship (2010–2011), Rockefeller Foundation Grant (2003), and the National Studio Program at P.S.1 (1991).<ref name=":4" />
She was an administrative coordinator for the Asian American Arts Alliance and a member of the Godzilla Asian American Arts Network and GYOPO.<ref name=":6" />
She exhibited her work in biennials held in Havana, Gwangju and Guangzhou.<ref name=":6" />
Yong Soon Min died at her home in Los Angeles, on March 12, 2024, at the age of 70.<ref name=":6">{{cite web |last1=Greenberger |first1=Alex |title=Yong Soon Min, Artist Who Incisively Analyzed Her Asian American Identity, Dies at 70 |url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/yong-soon-min-artist-dead-1234699670/ |website=ARTnews |date=March 13, 2024 |access-date=March 15, 2024}}</ref>
== Work == Her early work was primarily graphic or photography based; and by the mid-1980s she started to work more in installation art.<ref name=":3" />
In her 1989 work ''Make Me'', Min photographed herself and split each image in two, cutting out words such as "Exotic" and "Immigrant". It became part of the New Museum portion of the 1990 exhibition "The Decade Show: Frameworks of Identity in the 1980s".<ref name=":6" />
Min's installation work ''deColonization'' (1991) was centered around a traditional Korean dress in white with gold lettering, placed near four panels that told the story of women in Korea during the United States occupation and an assemblage of Korean book and clay pots filled with rice.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":5">{{Cite news|last=Raynor|first=Vivien|date=1991-07-21|title=Art: Introspection and Obsession Fill the 1991 'Marketplace' Show|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/21/nyregion/art-introspection-and-obsession-fill-the-1991-marketplace-show.html|access-date=2021-11-14|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> She used the dress as a metaphor to explore her own history and identity as a Korean-American and the Korean books and clay rice pots allude to Korean Buddhism.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":5" />
In her 1992 series "Defining Moments", Min photographed herself and filled her form with images of the Gwangju Uprising, which was a 1980 protest by South Korean students against a military dictator that was violently suppressed.<ref name=":6" />
A brain hemorrhage that Min suffered in 2011 informed the works in her 2016 show held at the Commonwealth and Council gallery in Los Angeles. The works included ''AVM: After Venus (Mal)formation'', which had a table split into triangles, each with its own word written on it.<ref name=":6" />
At the time of her death, Min's work was featured in an exhibition about the Godzilla Asian American Arts Network at the Eric Firestone Gallery in New York City, while works from "Defining Moments" were included in a survey called "Scratching at the Moon" at ICA LA.<ref name=":6" />
== See also == * Godzilla Asian American Arts Network
== References == {{Reflist}}
== External links == * {{Official website|https://www.yongsoonmin.com/}} * [https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/items/detail/yong-soon-min-response-to-what-feminist-art-22360 Yong Soon Min response to "What is Feminist Art?", 2019], from Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Min, Yong Soon}} Category:1953 births Category:2024 deaths Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni Category:University of California, Irvine faculty Category:American installation artists Category:South Korean emigrants to the United States Category:Artists from Los Angeles Category:American women printmakers Category:21st-century American women Category:People from Changnyeong County