B.G. Muhn (문범강)

B.G. Muhn (문범강)

Professor BG Muhn is a visual artist and teaches painting in the Department of Art and Art History at Georgetown University. He has a BA in Journalism from Sogang University in Seoul and his BFA at the California College of Arts in Oakland and his MFA at the University of Maryland in College Park.

Professor Muhn has achieved substantial and noteworthy professional recognition through solo exhibitions in venues such as Stux Gallery in the Chelsea district in New York City, the Ilmin Museum of Art in Seoul, and the American University Museum in Washington, DC. Through his professional endeavors, he has received numerous awards for his artistic merits including the Maryland State Arts Council’s Individual Artist Award and the Grand Prize in the Bethesda Painting Awards Competition. His artwork has been collected in museums and galleries including the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in South Korea. Most recently, one of his major paintings was purchased by the prestigious Seoul City Museum for its permanent collection. He has also received acclaim in reviews and interviews in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Art in America, and CNN. Professor Muhn’s life as an artist was featured in a one-hour documentary film by KBS.

In addition to actively creating and exhibiting his art, Professor Muhn has also taken a strong interest in and studied the relatively unknown field of North Korean art. During the past six years, he made nine trips to Pyongyang conducting research based on first-hand, on-site experience in the North Korean art community. He visited the Choson National Museum of Art and a National Art Exhibition as well as interviewed artists and art historians. He has given lectures on North Korean art at numerous academic venues and cultural centers in the United States, including Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Harvard, Michigan, and the Ohio State universities, the Watermill Center for Robert Wilson in Long Island, and the Korea Society in New York City. As a curator, he was invited to facilitate Contemporary North Korean Art: The Evolution of Socialist Realism at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center in 2016, and North Korean Art: Paradoxical Realism at the 12th Gwangju Biennale in 2018.

His research on North Korean art culminated in books, North Korean Art: The Enigmatic World of Chosonhwa, 2019 and 평양미술: 조선화 너는 누구냐 (Pyongyang Art: Uncovering the Complex Layers of Chosonhwa, 2018). He also authored the catalog for the exhibition, North Korean Art: Paradoxical Realism at the 2018 Gwangju Biennale, of which he was chosen as curator. He was appointed as a Maryland Arts Council by the Governor in October 2017. bgmuhn@gmail.com, https://global.georgetown.edu/people/b-g-muhn.