Join us for Book Talk: Miyoko Ito: Heart of Hearts— an evening of reflections on the abstract painter Miyoko Ito (1918–1983) with those who have found inspiration in the enigmatically profound work of this Japanese-American artist, including Jordan Stein, editor of the new volume; artists Pearl C Hsiung; Hanna Hur; Rebecca Morris; Lesley Vance; and Matt Connors, founder of Pre-Echo Press. While Ito’s paintings have recently been the subject of critically acclaimed exhibitions, her work was scarcely known beyond Chicago, where she lived and was celebrated during her lifetime. The result of several years of research, Miyoko Ito: Heart of Hearts is the first book project dedicated to Ito’s mysterious and underknown practice.

The program is created in partnership with Ooga Booga. Copies of the book will be available for purchase.

Jordan Stein is a curator and writer based in San Francisco. He is also the author of Rip Tales: Jay DeFeo’s Estocada & Other Pieces (Soberscove, 2021). In 2017, he founded Cushion Works, an exhibition space in the Mission District dedicated to the presentation of critical and often overlooked artworks, histories, and ideas. He has independently organized exhibitions at venues such as Yale Union, Artists Space, San Francisco City Hall, The Glass House, Matthew Marks Gallery, Fraenkel Gallery, and The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, where he formerly served as Curator of Special Projects, as well as at BAMPFA. From 2016-2022 he was a curator at KADIST, San Francisco.

Matt Connors is an artist and publisher who lives and works in New York City and Los Angeles.

Pre-Echo Press was started in 2016 by artist Matt Connors as a platform for disseminating a diverse and idiosyncratic array of recorded and printed matter.

Hanna Huris based in Los Angeles. Hur has a BFA from Concordia University, Montreal and received her MFA from the University of California Los Angeles in 2019. She has exhibited at Feuilleton, Los Angeles; u’s, Calgary; Bel Ami, Los Angeles; Franz Kaka, Toronto; Motel Gallery, New York; Visitor Welcome Center, Los Angeles; The Sunroom, Richmond; Audain Gallery at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver; and Shanaynay, Paris. Her work has been reviewed in The Los Angeles Times, Artforum, Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles, and Canadian Art magazine.

Rebecca Morris has been the subject of significant solo exhibitions at the Blaffer Art Museum, Houston (2019); Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, Holland (2014); and The Renaissance Society (2005). Her work has been included in numerous group shows, including Inherent Structure, Wexner Center for the Arts (2018), Made in L.A.:, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016); Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2014). Other solo shows include those at 356 Mission Rd. and LAXART, both in Los Angeles. Her work is in various public collections, including The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Sammlung Goetz, Munich, Germany; Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, Netherlands; DePaul Art Museum, Chicago, IL.

Morris is represented by Corbett vs. Dempsey, Bortolami Gallery, and Galerie Barbara Weiss. She is the recipient of awards and fellowships from California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Art, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, and Art Matters Inc., among others.

Pearl C Hsiung is a Taiwan-born artist based in Los Angeles whose painting, video, and installations summon landscapes to question human-nature dualisms and explore the speculative space of our physical, energetic, and temporal entanglement. She is an assistant professor in the School of Art at California State University, Long Beach and her recent large-scale tile mosaic commission “High Prismatic” is on view at the Grand Av Arts/Bunker Hill LAMetro station in downtown Los Angeles.