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The proverbial saying 'the apple doesn't fall far from the tree' epitomizes the dynamic relationship between mother and son, Minjae Kim and MyoungAe Lee. Spending much of her life as an abstract artist in South Korea, Lee has nurtured Kim's curiosity, inevitability informing his passion as a New York-based designer. The two recently joined forces to embellish Matter with their distinct craft, presented during New York Art Week.

An exploration of Kim's childhood and the familial intimacies present throughout his arc, the show celebrates creative overlap and the intricate bond between Kim and Lee. Currently on view and running through July 29, this show marks Lee's U.S debut, bridging her lifelong career with her son's surrealistic creations. 

Inviting an audience to witness the imaginative worlds of both Kim and Lee, Matter continues to hold space for art that transmutes reality. Situated among the store's floorplan sits Kim's playful yet innovative creations, where functionality meets fantasy. From quirky wooden chairs to a sturdy bench, Kim manipulates raw material, elevating concepts that seem inconceivable. In a world where function is merely second, Kim's art is backdropped by his mother's paintings, vibrant abstractions pulling on her experiences throughout the years. A medley of pieces in conversation with one another, this show honors multigenerational creative forces.

Meditating on the connection with his mother, MyoungAe Lee, Kim opens up to office about the work that went into this show, long conversations, and the lessons he gathered from his mother's teachings. 

I want to congratulate you and your mother, MyoungAe Lee, on this beautiful show. How are you feeling at the moment?

Thank you! It's been almost two weeks since the opening. It was a demanding and intense experience, especially doing it with my mother. I think that's why I also feel pretty removed from it at the moment. It was a lot of specific experience leading up to the opening and the first few days of the show. My mother just left yesterday to go back to Korea. I also just moved to a new apartment where we were staying together for the past few days. This is my first time sitting here alone. It feels as if none of it ever happened.

How did this show at Matter Projects come to be?

Last year Jamie Gray from Matter reached out to me for a studio visit, and I had just asked my mom to send me some of her work because I thought having them around would bring more opportunities for her in the U.S. I was late to the studio visit and hopped out of uber with her painting, and Jamie gave me a hand with it. Later in the studio, we were having a chat, and I mentioned the painting being done by my mother, which was a surprise to Jamie because he had assumed that it was done by the same hands. Our discussion eventually led to showing my work along with my mother's at Matter's storefront gallery. I have a specific memory of stumbling into this space more than 10 years ago in one of my first visits to New York when I had just finished architecture school and being blown away. It felt exciting to come back here with my own work, especially accompanied by my mother's familiar presence.

When creating a string of pieces, what's your design process, and did it change for this show at all?

I usually try to find a single thread of identity or detail that would define that piece and try to let that guide me through the design process. But I've also been trying to break out of that as well and be more impulsive or unplanned, which has informed the way I've been using wood or fiberglass. It's usually clear which part needs precision, and where I can let the fiberglass sit with gravity or where I can freely carve a form. Another thing I've been trying to expand is the material palette. Perhaps it's the architecture school or the modernist design language that I was educated in, but I always had this idea that the palette has to be very 'honest' to the concept, structure, etc., but the years in the design world revealed to me that, as is life, nothing is really what it seems. So I've been more open to using color and paint on my work. Working on this show allowed me to expedite this process. I wanted my work to respond to my mother's work in a pretty literal way. The Shaped Fiberglass Chairs began because I wanted to recreate her language in a truly three-dimensional world. So not only did I have to use fiberglass to replicate her form, but I also had to experiment with more colors and texture and devote the majority of my effort in working on the visual composition.

Your Mother has been an artist for years. What was the relationship like when you began exploring art?

I think it's accurate to say that my artistic exploration was very much nourished by her from the beginning. As a child, I spent a lot of time around her doodling, and she always took them very seriously when she began having art lessons at home for hobbyists and children, she let me sit in and learn from her as well. I believe this experience to be my foundation. But when it came to choosing my career path in my teen years, she advised me against pursuing fine art due to the difficulties she had experienced herself, which is how I began my interest in architecture. But no matter what discipline I was in, we could always share our creative process and give each other feedback.

Lee's artworks are the perfect backdrop for your pieces, a show that celebrates abstraction and playfulness. What was the communication between you two when creating this exhibition?

I had seen her work all my life, yet she had never seen the body of work I've been creating for the past few years in real life, and it was clear to both of us that there was a lot she couldn't really understand in my work without being in the room together. So I began planning the show around her work. I was pretty familiar with the work she had at home and could plan the room and palette accordingly. When I visited Korea last March, both my parents and I ended up catching the COVID together, so we took advantage of that time and selected which of her works would be in the show together. Since her studio and storage are all at the apartment they live in, we were able to pull old work from storage and lay them out among her new work. We were all quite sick, but this was a really nice time. All we did was make meals, clean, look at her work, and daydream of the exciting adventure we were embarking on.

Drawing on familial connections and lived experiences, what was it like constructing a representation of the relationship between you and your Mother?

It's such a difficult thing to describe. Inevitably the show was going to be about our relationship, and doing it would have ripples on our relationship. There was a moment leading up to the opening after the install was done where we were trying to decide the title for the show or whether we were going to title it at all. And I was caught up with the idea that the negative space between our work was somehow symbolic of our relationship, or the only visual or poetic way to describe our relationship. Or ultimately I saw the negative space as something vague enough that I felt comfortable labeling it as representative of our relationship because, at the end of the day, it is so private and personal that a representation of that seemed so daunting. Anyways, it was emotional but inconclusive!

Were there any moments when creating this show where times became overwhelming? This may be because of hard memories or feelings you weren't ready to confront? A show that centers on the connected energy of a mother and son must have had some high emotions felt along the way.

A couple of days before the opening, we finally found a moment to relax and go out for dinner. She had landed a couple of weeks prior to the opening, but the first week, I barely got to see her because I was bunkered at the studio, and the second week was non-stop work at the gallery with installation and photoshoots. After a big meal and a drink or two, we were finally able to share how it had been for each of us as we prepare for this show; her in Daejeon, and me in Brooklyn, some thousands of miles away from each other. She shared why she initially was skeptical and nervous but how this experience has been revitalizing her. I found myself crying on my bike ride home. I think that was the release for me because we had done it. The rest of the ride was pretty neutral other than her giving life advice at every available corner being pretty difficult.

How long have you wanted to have a show with your Mother?

I'd say a little more than a year before Marta, and I began talking about my first show there, I didn't really imagine showing my work in this context. Even for the show at Marta, I had requested to include a painting by her.

What's some advice your Mother has given you when creating?

She gives me a lot of advice on composition or color when I share my work with her... which I don't find all that useful because, by the time I share something with her, the work is more or less concluded! But more than any words, I find having seen her approach to work and how seriously she faces them the most helpful. She taught me that the struggle to get it right is always worth it. MyoungAe as a mother, encourages me to not stay at the studio late, go home, sleep well, and never skip breakfast, but MyoungAe as an artist, knows that I have to face my challenge and see it through.

This being MyoungAe Lee's U.S debut, what did the conversation look like between you two before opening night?

Although she felt good about the work and the install, she was very nervous and very curious about how people would perceive the work. There was also a lot of anxiety related to the language barrier because she was expected to meet a lot of English-speaking people. So we tried to focus our thoughts more on work and the undeniable synergy they have for each other. Then, of course, there were a lot of nostalgic conversations that started with 'remember when...?' We knew that the opening night will definitely be one of those moments where we will revisit over and over in the coming years.

Hank Willis Thomas continues to confront what it means to be an American in his latest exhibition Everything We See Hides Another Thing. Works in this latest installment span across different mediums — photography, sculpture and textile, solidifying his place as a truly multidisciplinary master. The work takes on a cataclysmic approach to classic American iconography while referencing the aesthetics of some of the greatest American artists throughout history such as Warhol and Rauschenberg. 

Read our interview with Hank Willis Thomas from issue 18 here.

The American flag, a recurring theme of his body of work, appears in the show in the piece 'Falling Stars' which depicts thousands of embroidered stars honoring the lives of the number of victims of gun violence in America — an issue deeply personal to Willis Thomas after he lost a friend to gun violence. The most interactive and quirky element of the exhibition is the retroflective work which forces the viewer to step out of the passive viewing of photography and intentionally engage with the art by using a flash in order to reveal the subject.

Everything We See Hides Another Thing is on view at both Chelsea locations of the Jack Shainman Gallery until October 29th, 2022.

At the very least, if you've ever listened to Frank Ocean then you've come across the work of photographer Wolfgang Tillmans, who shot the legendary cover of Blonde (2016) a.k.a Frank Ocean crying in the shower. Now, on view at the Museum of Modern Art, the legendary image maker is having his first ever New York exhibition, including approximately 350 pieces from over three decades, ranging from photography to video and other forms of mixed visual media.

Wolfgang Tillmans: To Look Without Fear discloses a vast scope of his work as an artist rather than a photographer. As part of his creative signature, not adding any additional effects to his photographs gives them an understated and sentimental, rather than flashy, look — a personal element that is an aesthetic that could almost be overseen. However, it's the motifs and expressions he decides to capture that evoke emotions. 

Switching from abstract experimental photography, to raw journalistic documentary, to staged trailblazing fashion editorials for both publications and iconic campaigns has proven his work transgresses one set category.

Apart from that, the German-born artist has developed a one-of-a-kind tactic of coalescing a relationship between space and his exhibits. By placing his work in a rather unconventional way — yes, the photograph is meant to be next to the fire extinguisher — the exhibition transforms from looking at 2-D art to a three-dimensional installation. Tillmans' work is conveyed by integrity and research that conquers to create proximity between the captured object or person and the viewer. 

The exhibition will be open to the public from the 12th of September until the 1st of January 2023 found in the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Center for Special Exhibitions.

Since the 1980's, photographer David LaChapelle has been making an undeniable impact on the creative world — one seen across fashion, arts, and culture. 

His bold and unapologetic style has held its own in a competetive industry and garnered a dedicated, well-deserved fanbase for its unique aesthetic: each piece drips with deep-set religious references, highly saturated color schemes and hypersexual visuals.

Without forgoing tongue-in-cheek attitude, LaChapelle has proven over the years he has an inherent and unmatched ability to turn a celebrity portrait into a challenging, erotic, exciting, political and sociological statement as much as a beautiful work of art.

Though his work is anything but a stranger to the gallery setting, aptly during NYFW, Fotografiska New York opens the most extensive retrospective of DLC's career to date. Touching on the wide range of themes and techniques the artist has approached throughout the 40 years he's been in practice, highlighting in particlar the religious under- (and over-) tones his work has become both fervently beloved and criticized for, the exhibition titled Make Believe will present to the public over 150 works created by LaChapelle between 1984 and 2022.

From his prolific 90's portfolio featuring everyone from Tupac and David Bowie to Britney Spears, to more current portraits of Kim Kardashian, Travis Scott and the like — the historic, and ironically church-like Fotografiska building in Midtown has dedicated its entire space to the exhibition. 

Check out a preview below, and be sure to head over to the show yourself, opening September 9th. 

Please confirm that you are at least 18 years old.