Scratching at the Moon at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Scratching at the Moon (installation view) (2024). Image courtesy of the artists and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Photo: Jeff McLane.

Upon entering the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles’ (ICA LA) expansive atrium, visitors are greeted by Michelle Lopez’s Correctional Lighting (2024), a monumental highway lamp that swings haphazardly in a circle, its weight delicately counterbalanced by a resin-cast cinder block. The lamp casts a lighthouse beam that illuminates the diverse collection of artworks on view, which together complicate and widen our understanding of “Asian American” as both a term and an identity. By engaging their diasporic experiences of mutual connection and support, the thirteen intergenerational artists featured in Scratching at the Moon reflect on how communities evolve over time, acknowledging what is passed down through lineages and what is lost in translation.

Tucked away in a dark enclave is the video installation Hotel (2024) by Korean American artist Na Mira, which pays tribute to the artist’s creative ancestors. Corner set mirrors bounce projected videos of the artist Hanna Hur running in a ritualistic spiral through the desolate Bonaventure Hotel in Downtown L.A. Meanwhile, a lone radio hauntly emits the upbeat and clerical voices of L.A.’s 1540 AM Radio Korea. As Hur traces diminishing circles, she gestures toward a portal that links life and death, acknowledging how they inform one other. Mira’s spiritual practice conjures a cosmic awareness of her forbearers—namely, Korean American artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. In Hotel, Mira draws upon Cha’s final unfinished film, White Dust from Mongolia (1980), as source material, borrowing characters from Cha’s script and consulting her archives for direction in an effort to continue breathing life into the multitude of directions her work could have taken. Mira’s intent is not to complete Cha’s work but to honor her spirit of fragmentation, dancing somewhere between retrieving the past and actively writing the present. 

While Mira’s work builds a bridge to artist networks beyond our physical reach, Scratching at the Moon also underscores the profound impact of diasporic communities on our local L.A. art and culture. Occupying an entire gallery, the work of Korean American artists Yong Soon Min and Young Chung offers poignant insight into not only their student-mentor relationship, but also their overlapping and disparate diasporic experiences. Chung presents Not By Birth (1996/2023), a series of black-and-white portraits memorializing biological and chosen family members. In a photograph titled Ssaem, an informal term for “teacher” in Korean, Min, Chung’s professor in the ’90s, wears a kindhearted smile and crosses her arms self-assuredly. In the wake of Min’s recent passing, the image becomes even more sentimental, speaking to the importance of intergenerational camaraderie.¹ Lining the adjacent wall, Min’s Defining Moments (1992) comprises six black-and-white self-portraits etched with words and numbers representing historical dates significant to her identity.

As a self-proclaimed “Cold War baby”² who immigrated to California at the age of seven, Min grew up between two cultures, in her own words, “feeling…half-home both as an American and as a Korean.”³ Both Min and Chung reflect on the specificity of Korean American culture in Los Angeles, which is home to the largest population of Koreans outside of Korea—one of Min’s portraits, for instance, refers to the 1992 L.A. riots and the subsequent racism and violence faced by the Korean American community. While Chung’s “self-portrait” pays tribute to those who have had a direct impact, honoring Min’s legacy in education and art,⁴ Min’s construction of self is built upon her historical lineage and collapses timelines between generations and continents.

Whether directly showcasing the intimacies and camaraderie between a network of individual artists or reaching further to honor the histories that continue to actively transform and shape our shared diasporic identity, the artists in Scratching at the Moon make our entanglements visible, embodying the multiplicity of the term “Asian American” and nullifying the fallacy that we exist as a monolithic group.⁵

Scratching at the Moon runs from February 10–July 28, 2024 at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1717 E. 7th St., Los Angeles, CA 90021).

Young Chung, China Doll, King (Saigu), Mamasan, and Papasan from Not By Birth (installation view) (1996/2023). Five archival pigment prints mounted to Dibond in lacquered aluminum frames, 24.25 x 18.25 x 1.5 inches each. Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2024. Image courtesy of the artist and Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles, Mexico City. Photo: Jeff McLane.

Na Mira, Hotel (installation view) (2024). Two-channel 16mm film transfer (black and white, silent, 1 minute and 33 seconds; black and white, silent, 2 minutes and 58 seconds); HD video (sound, 26 minutes and 56 seconds); transmitter; radio; mirror; and paint; installation dimensions variable. Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2024. Image courtesy of the artist and Paul Soto, Los Angeles. Photo: Jeff McLane.

Na Mira, Hotel (installation view) (2024). Two-channel 16mm film transfer (black and white, silent, 1 minute and 33 seconds; black and white, silent, 2 minutes and 58 seconds); HD video (sound, 26 minutes and 56 seconds); transmitter; radio; mirror; and paint; installation dimensions variable. Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2024. Image courtesy of the artist and Paul Soto, Los Angeles. Photo: Jeff McLane.

Scratching at the Moon (installation view) (2024). Image courtesy of the artists and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Photo: Jeff McLane.

Scratching at the Moon (installation view) (2024). Image courtesy of the artists and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Photo: Jeff McLane.

Scratching at the Moon (installation view) (2024). Image courtesy of the artists and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Photo: Jeff McLane.

Dean Sameshima, Traces (no.1) (installation view) (1990/2023). Eight archival inkjet prints on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag paper, 16.5 x 23.5 inches each unframed. Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2024. Image courtesy of the artist; Kristine Kite Gallery, Los
Angeles; and Soft Opening, London. Photo: Jeff McLane.

Amanda Ross-Ho, Untitled Waste Image (HEAVY DUTY) and Untitled Prop Archive (THE PORTFOLIO) (installation view) (both 2023). Duratex transparency print in custom lightbox, 74 x 60 x 5 inches; Reproduction Magnolia Street Kitchen Table (154.84%) (Combination core plywood, ash end-grain veneer with fleece backer, plank matched plain-sliced maple veneer, steel surface mount corner brackets, oil and hard wax finish) and pre-owned, modified, prop objects sourced from the online marketplace, 56 x 96 x 46ó inches. Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2024. Image courtesy of the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York. Photo: Jeff McLane.

Scratching at the Moon (installation view) (2024). Image courtesy of the artists and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Photo: Jeff McLane.

Anna Sew Hoy, Multitude Wall (installation view) (2023). Button-down shirts and safety pins, installation dimensions variable.
Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2024. Image courtesy of the artist and Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles, Mexico City. Photo: Jeff McLane.

Sigourney Schultz is an L.A.-based art writer. She holds an MA in Art History from Hunter College in New York City.

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