Artist Talk: Anna Sew Hoy

Join us for a conversation between Curator of Contemporary Art Eungie Joo and artist Anna Sew Hoy, whose New Work exhibition is on view through July 16. Constructed from clay arches, metal cages, and detritus ranging from charging cords to hair clips, Sew Hoy’s Growing Ruins sculptures resemble shelters assembled from the remains of a postapocalyptic world. At SFMOMA, three of these mesmerizing forms take center stage alongside large-scale coiled clay vessels and a vast web of office shirts that reference the human body. Together, these works explore Sew Hoy’s interest in the relationship between the exterior world of bodies, buildings, and objects and the interior space of emotions, thoughts, and souls. Joo and Sew Hoy will discuss this exhibition in the context of the artist’s larger practice.

About the Speakers

Anna Sew Hoy has been at the forefront of a re-engagement with clay in contemporary art and is identified with a critical rethinking of the relationship between art and craft. Solo presentations of her work have been mounted at the Aspen Art Museum; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Hammer Museum; the San Jose Museum of Art; and the Orange County Museum of Art; as well as at SFMOMA. Sew Hoy received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Visual Art in 2022. She was awarded a Creative Capital Grant for Visual Art to support Psychic Body Grotto (2017), her largest public sculpture to date. She has also received the California Community Foundation Grant for Emerging Artists, the United States Artists Broad Fellowship, and the Anonymous Was A Woman Award. She is Associate Professor and Ceramics Area Head at University of California, Los Angeles.

Eungie Joo’s curatorial practice focuses on the present and includes considered thinking about discursive and performative practices as well as the commission of new projects and residencies. She has published numerous essays on artistic practices including that of Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Cinthia Marcelle, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Adrián Villar Rojas, Margaret Kilgallen, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Mark Bradford, and Kara Walker, among others. Joo served as a curatorial advisor to the 2022 Aichi Triennale: Still Alive; Artistic Director of the 5th Anyang Public Art Project/APAP 5 (2016); Curator of Sharjah Biennial 12: The past, the present, the possible (2015); Curator of the 2012 New Museum Generational Triennial: The Ungovernables; and Commissioner of the Korean Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale, where she presented Condensation: Haegue Yang (2009). Joo is curator of Contemporary Art at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Accessibility Information

Accessible seating is available at this event. Accessibility accommodations such as American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation and assisted listening devices are available upon request 10 business days in advance. Please email publicengagement@sfmoma.org, and we will do our best to fulfill your request.
 

Generous support for New Work: Anna Sew Hoy is provided by Alka and Ravin Agrawal, Joachim and Nancy Hellman Bechtle, Adriane Iann and Christian Stolz, and Robin Wright and Ian Reeves.

Support for Public Programs and Artist Talks at SFMOMA is provided by the Phyllis C. Wattis Distinguished Lecture Series.