As I approached Fresh Meadows Corona Park I noticed the historic NYC building, the site of the two World's Fairs and the first home of the United Nations, The Queens Museum of Art has become the principal center for fine arts in the Borough. The New York City building in which the Queens Museum of Modern Art is located in is one of the major structures surviving from the 1939 and 1940 World's Fairs. With a focus on modern and contemporary art, the Museum presents permanent and changing exhibitions covering a wide variety of styles and disciplines.

Upon entering the museum, I noticed works of art by legends such as Raymond Lester & Associates, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and Hong Sung-dam. The greatest exhibit in the museum is the Panorama of the City of New York, which was built by Raymond Lester & Associates in 1994. The New York City Panorama, the world's largest architectural scale model, is a fascinating replica of the city including all of its highlights. It's easy to watch for a very long time as city events unfold before your eyes in miniature. This exhibit is a permanent feature of the Museum as is The New York City Building, covering the history of this famous site with special d

Hong Sung-dam was born in 1955 in the Sihan Island south of the Korean peninsula into a situation of poverty and oppression. He began the "People's School of Art" in Gwangju, a city in Southwestern Korea, in 1983, and organized an artists association in 1985. Hong was imprisoned for his participation in the creation of a mural in North Korea depicting various injustices suffered by South Korean people. He was subjected to torture in prison, and released in 1992 after unrelenting protests from humanitarian groups. Since his release, his work has turned away from the specifics of war to address global issues of communication, violence, protest, and rehabilitation. The exhibition will include Hong Sung-dam's most well-known work, Dawn, (1981-1988) a series of forty-nine prints memorializing the human situation of Korea in the 1980s. In May 1980, students, workers, intellectuals, religious leaders, and other supporters of the Korean democratization movement rose up against the military regime in power in Gwangju (Hong's home). The protests intensified, and on May 18 the military unleashed a lethal strike on its citizens. Dawn, an installation of black and white propaganda-style woodblock prints, depicts the horror of the Gwangju Massacre and the ensuing struggle for freedom. Using titles such as Blood & Tears (1983), The Union World (1984), and The Gun, It's My Life (1984), the artist weaves together historical fact and personal narrative in a compelling record of the lives of the people of Gwangju. Hong's "propaganda style" of the 1980s refutes both traditional and Western Modernist trends, bo

Some topics in this essay:
Gap-o Farmers, York City, People's Art, Hong Sung-dam's, Gwangju Hong's, Cathedral France, City Panorama, World's Fairs, South Korean, East Asians, york city, queens museum, stained glass, queens museum art, york city building, louis comfort, world's fairs, north korea, mural north, raymond lester, hong sung-dam, louis comfort tiffany, raymond lester associates, city building, mural north korea,