Overview & Events

Gallery Talk: noon-mool
Sunday, September 6, 2:00–3:00 p.m.

American University Museum is honored to present noon-mool (tears), a major solo exhibition by Korean artist Ahn Chang-Hong. Occupying both the second and third floors of the museum, the exhibition offers a rare opportunity to experience the breadth of one of Korea's most significant contemporary artists through a comprehensive presentation of his recent work.

Renowned for his unflinching exploration of history, memory, violence, and the fragility of human existence, Ahn works across painting, sculpture, and multimedia. He has developed a distinctive visual language that unites formal experimentation with profound psychological and social inquiry. His work confronts mortality while offering a deeply empathetic portrayal of marginalized and wounded lives.

At the exhibition’s center is the acclaimed Taxidermy series, in which Ahn layers paint over large-scale photographs of taxidermied animals. The resulting images are both visually striking and deeply unsettling, transforming preserved specimens into poignant reflections on mortality and vulnerability.

The exhibition also includes three-dimensional works and selected earlier paintings, allowing visitors to trace the evolution of Ahn's artistic practice across decades. While his subject matter has evolved, his persistent engagement with social realities, human fragility, and existential anxiety remains unchanged.

Seen together, these works reveal an artist who continually reinvents his practice without losing sight of the ethical and emotional concerns that have defined it for decades. Moving fluidly across media, Ahn creates images that are at once beautiful and unsettling. Occupying two floors of the museum, noon-mool is an immersive and unforgettable exhibition that invites visitors to grapple with some of the most profound questions of our shared humanity.