Bahc Yiso

Place: Seoul

Born: 1957

Death: 2004

Biography:

BAHC Yiso, also known as Mo Bahc, was a South Korean visual artist, cultural organizer, curator, theorist, and educator. He went by three first names during his lifetime; while Cheol-ho (철호, 哲熇) was his legal name, he adopted the name Mo (모, 某) during his time in New York, which he changed to Yiso (이소, 異素) when he returned to South Korea. Both of the adopted names indicate his self-identification of being displaced or on the periphery, which he had hoped to be a position of privilege 'with more freedom to do something unexpected.': 34 In New York, he was noted as the founder and director of Minor Injury, an alternative space in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and a co-founder of SEORO Korean Cultural Network, a Korean American artists' network that bridged Korean American artists of various immigration backgrounds. His works produced in New York reflect his engagement with the time's political and cultural movement addressing the systemic marginalization of minority groups and questioning issues surrounding race and identity. His time in Korea is said to have been a prolific period for Bahc as an artist, producing works beyond the realm of identity politics. Bahc's interested in reforming Korea's art education system also led him to lecture drawing at SADI, among other universities. Bahc has been credited as a critical figure in Korea's contemporary art scene, especially for introducing the American discourse of poststructuralism or critical postmodernism by his writing and translation work.