Heji Shin's AMERICA

How does one depict a topic as vexed as “America,” especially today?

Artist Heji Shin takes an oblique approach to this subject in her debut US institutional solo show, “Heji Shin’s America: Part One,” currently on view at the Aspen Art Museum.

Heji Shin portrait by Richard Kern. Courtesy the artist

Known for infringing on conventional morality, epistemologies of identity, and historical narratives in her images of babies breaching birth canals, male porn stars fucking in the guise of NYPD, and a monkey holding a wad of euros, in this show, Shin presents the nation with unhackneyed abstraction.

“America” is comprised of a series of 15 photographs divided between two rooms and two subjects, rockets and the ocean. Captured last summer in Cape Canaveral, Florida, the images not only mark a novel chapter in Shin’s practice in that they lack living subjects, they are also a time-stamped meditation on a country on the precipice of rapid transformation under conservatism. The resulting “elemental” images are divided between eight views of rockets arcing with mathematical precision and seven views of waves splattering into foam against the rocky Atlantic coast.

Heji Shin, Basic Precint, 2018. Courtesy the artist

They are a far cry from the typical conventions of iconic American imagery which, whether conveyed through the pathos of Gordon Parks and Dorothea Lange or the cutting realism of Robert Frank’s The Americans (1958), often rely on humanism as a means to depict the nation. Instead, Shin’s depopulated American images offer a moment of aesthetic sublimity amidst the storm.

In conversation with Phillip Pyle around the opening of “Heji Shin’s America: Part One,” the artist spoke about “epic” American photographers and why she intentionally avoided approaching the topic from an ideological perspective.

PHILLIP PYLE: This show is a departure from your previous work largely because there are no human or animal subjects. How did you end up focusing on rockets and the ocean as your subjects?

HEJI SHIN: I had one dinner before the exhibition with Nicola Lees and Daniel Merritt, the director and the chief curator of the Aspen Museum. They suggested a show about America, maybe a documented road trip, a modern-day Odyssey, or something like this. At that point, I was very enthusiastic about it. We talked about Robert Frank’s The Americans, Irving Penn’s portraits, and Ansel Adam’s landscapes. I also had determined what the title would be three months before the opening of the show, so I already had the title and had to work with it. That was the start, and then the idea of the rockets and the landscapes was a more elaborated version of what we had at the dinner.

PP: Did you start at Cape Canaveral? Or were you driving and then decided to stop there?

HS: I wanted to go there because of the rockets, but there was an in-between process of how I ended up with one idea. I went to Massachusetts, I drove around New York, trying to make some portraits. I was in Texas, too. But then, I decided not to do portraits because there was such a big range that I didn’t know where to start. It was also too specific at that point. I needed to start. I started with the rockets and noticed what I actually wanted to do.

Heji Shin, Falling Cursed Soldier, 2021. Courtesy the artist

PP: You mentioned in a past interview that you recently stopped making intentional provocation with your work. Did that alter the way you worked in terms of editing and the like?

HS: I’m saying a lot of things in interviews, I guess. But, in the show, there is no provocation. Of course, I cannot predict that for any future shows. I guess I felt this way at that moment.

With landscape photography and rocket photography, the circumstances are limited in terms of how you can alter light or different perspectives. You’re limited in general. You’re more detached in an observational stance. You are more in a receiving mode with this kind of photography. It’s less interactional than portraits.

PP: Since there were not as many controlled factors, were there also more surprises?

HS: Yeah, because I wasn’t familiar with rocket photography. There’s a whole procedure attached to it because you have to get accredited for a press sighting or viewing. Then, there’s all this technical stuff that I had never worked with before, but I was very lucky I had a lot of help. Patience was also something that I wasn’t so used to. It was a seize the moment kind of situation.

PP: The press release describes these images as “elemental,” which is interesting because some of the rocket imagery approaches abstraction. Why approach the topic of America in this elemental or abstract way rather than a figurative one?

HS: Daniel first started to use the term “elemental images,” and, of course, it really is solely the depiction that there’s fire, air, and water in just the rockets.

I also think it brings the idea of the verticals and horizontals further, and it’s this more primordial representation of opposites that I liked when thinking about America—maybe also complementary opposites or extremes. It has more symbolic ideas behind it and is less specific, less individualistic.

From left to right: Heji Shin World View Legion (grey rocket), Polaris Dawn 1 (poster rocket), and Polaris Dawn 2 (black rocket), 2024. Courtesy the artist

PP: These works remind me of the dramatized images that you made of the war in Iraq, but in those there’s this element of parodic deception because they are not documentarian and the subjects are played by actors. Why did you feel it was necessary to portray America without any kind of deception?

HS: I see what you mean. It was already such a big topic, that I was really occupied with how I could make it not too specific, that it’s really about the idea of America rather than… people would probably rather go ideologically into this problem, or politically with what’s happening, but I intentionally wanted to avoid that—and you recognized or noticed that it was intentional that I avoided these issues.

PP: There is also a flooding of art that depict those issues in a very obvious and figurative way.

HS: Yeah, I just liked this very classical idea of art. I think that came up because we started with epic photographic work like Ansel Adams and Robert Frank. These ideas are not that new, even if it might seem new with rockets. The elemental idea is quite foundational or even mythological.

PP: Was Winslow Homer one of the classical artists you were directly inspired by?

HS: Yeah, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the Met and seen his paintings of waves, but this is a direct reference.

Heji Shin, Protegee Protector 2, 2018. Courtesy the artist

PP: Even though there are not any humans in these images, your depictions of non-humans in the past, including those in “#lonelygirl,” still bore on human identity in a way. Could that be said of these images too?

HS: I didn’t have people in mind, but it’s more of an introspective position and maybe even the reconciliation of these opposites. It’s almost like an alchemical motive, which has to do less with individuals and more with a group of people. It’s definitely more like the idea of a collective, or a collective idea, you know? That’s why it’s elemental. What do you think?

PP: You had already talked about the difference between the verticals and the horizontals, but in the difference in the concentrated energy of the rocket imagery and the more dispersed energy of the waves images, too, I saw America framed as the ultimate binary in a lot of ways.

HS: Absolutely! The rockets also contain this idea of a sky cult or a colonial idea. Then, the water refers more to the Dionysian, which is an ancient idea.

Heji Shin, Reclining Nude, 2023. Courtesy the artist

PP: There is also something very romantic about the wave imagery.

HS: Yeah, I heard that a lot of people were more impressed by the wave room. They said it was much more emotional. I was actually surprised about that because, when you work on it, you don’t notice these things.

PP: You’ve often toyed with this idea of art as propaganda. Do you see this show as being a form of propaganda in any way, even if it is just in an aesthetic way?

HS: No, no, no. I remember saying that. I think I’ve even said it twice in an interview. When I said that, I was also aware that it was a little bit sarcastic. I don’t even know if people project that into this show because it intentionally has nothing that touches on anything that people are too worried or excited about at this time.

PP: I didn’t even notice overt American symbolism in the rocket imagery. They could have been taken anywhere. It seems fitting because now, instead of conjuring nationalism, when people see rockets they immediately think of private industry.

HS: Yeah! It’s not normal because that’s actually not what it is. It’s just one case in history.