If Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade

“If Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade” is a powerful maxim that encourages an optimistic attitude in the face of adversity or misfortune. Since moving to Berlin in 2009, interdisciplinary visual artist kate-hers RHEE’s work explores the intersections of race, gender and cultural identity specific to language and nation. In this solo exhibition, she presents work that confronts disparaging racist and sexist German colloquialisms, while deflating them with humour and wit. “If Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade” is often used by women, women of colour and recently quite famously referred to by Beyoncé in her iconic music album Lemonade with a direct quote from Hattie White, Jay Z’s grandmother. Born in Seoul, kate-hers RHEE was raised in the racially segregated suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. Her interdisciplinary work reflects the complex nature of miscast identity, cultural dislocation, and gendered interactions. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her MFA from the University of California – Irvine, where she was a Graduate Studies Diversity and Jacob K. Javits fellow. RHEE’s work has been shown nationally and internationally with recent exhibitions and interactive projects at the Art Space One - Seoul (2016-17), Asian Arts Initiative - Philadelphia, PA (2017), Seoul Art Space SEOGYO (2017), British Museum – London (2016), Asian Art Museum – Berlin (2016-2017), and the Neuer Berlin Kunstverein (2016). RHEE was a recipient of the Berlin Visual Artist Fellowship in 2016.

Artist:

kate-hers RHEE (US）

2017/05