1990 — 2002 · New York · Seoul
Haenah-Kent Gallery
A gallery that ran in two cities at once: 568 Broadway in SoHo, New York, and 198-10 Gwanhun-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul. It introduced American, Korean and Chinese-language artists to New York collectors.
This is an archive, not a shop. It exists so that the works, the documents and the names stay together and can be verified — by a curator, a researcher, or an institution — rather than dispersing one object at a time.
Founder
Kang-Ja Lee
Sculpture, Seoul National University. In 1982 she moved to New York for graduate study at the State University of New York. In 1983 she made outdoor conceptual installations. In 1990 she opened the gallery in SoHo.
In 2001 she showed a series of paintings on hanji and oil in a solo exhibition at the POSCO Art Museum, Seoul. She died in 2002. Her body of work is closed, documented, and largely unseen since.
- 1982Graduate study, State University of New York
- 1983Outdoor conceptual installation work
- 1990Haenah-Kent Gallery opens, 568 Broadway, SoHo, New York
- 1990sParallel space at 198-10 Gwanhun-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul
- 2001Solo exhibition, POSCO Art Museum, Seoul — paintings on hanji and oil
- 2002Kang-Ja Lee dies
- 2022Twentieth-anniversary retrospective
Artists shown or handled — confirmed to date
The list is limited to names confirmed from gallery documents and from the works themselves. It will grow as the gallery's own inventory records are recovered.
Documentation
The label on the back of the painting
Works handled by the gallery carry a printed label on the reverse: both addresses, the artist's name, the title, the medium, and an inventory code.
The code system — the artist's initials followed by a number — means a master inventory existed. Recovering that list is the single most useful thing that can still be done for this archive.
198-10 관훈동 종로구 서울
BILL WILSON — BW-2 — ENGLISH GARDEN — OIL
Transcription of a label photographed on the reverse of the work. Scans of the labels themselves are being prepared for this page.
Selected holdings — paintings
Works held from the gallery's years
112 × 86 cm
1991
Signed and dated on the front. Title, year, dimensions and a studio code in the artist's hand on the reverse, over an abandoned earlier composition.
96.5 × 76 cm
1991
Signed and dated on the front. On the reverse an earlier title struck through and corrected by the artist, with a studio code.
115 × 171 cm
Carries the gallery label, inventory code BW-2. The artist's full identity is under verification.
165 × 112 cm
Consistent with the artist's late manner. Callner held a Guggenheim Fellowship and was given a retrospective in Albany, New York.
100 × 81 cm
1992
Signed and dated on the picture surface. The reverse has not yet been photographed; the artist's full identity is under verification.
Around seventy works are held from the gallery's years. Those listed here are the ones whose documentation is furthest along; the rest are being catalogued and added as their condition, dimensions and reverse markings are recorded.
Kept separately — works on paper, editioned
Prints
Editioned prints are listed apart from the paintings above, so that the two are never read as one group.
- A/PTomar Levine — Jet-Bead Blossoms, artist's proof 13/20
- 3/4Richard Callner — Landscape, 1985, on BFK Rives
- 7/15Sea Dream II — artist under verification
- ?Wucius Wong 王無邪 — two sheets, 53 × 75 cm and 55 × 76 cm; edition status being confirmed
Open questions
What is not yet settled
An archive is more useful when it says what it does not know. These points are being worked on and are not presented as established:
- —The gallery's master inventory list, which the label codes refer to.
- —Full identification of the artists recorded as Bill Wilson and as Carson.
- —Edition status of the two works by Wucius Wong.
- —Exhibition histories for individual works, where gallery paperwork has not yet been located.
Custodianship
The archive and the estate are in the care of Kent Kim, the founder's son, who built the gallery with her while he was in high school. Enquiries from institutions, curators and researchers are welcome.