KIM YE
m0mmy brain marketplace
Feb 10 – March 20, 2025
Guggenheim Gallery

On Sunday, February 16, 2025, from 3–6 pm, Chapman University’s Guggenheim Gallery will host an artist reception for Kim Ye: m0mmy brain marketplace, a solo exhibition by Kim Ye. Through performance, video, installation, objects, and text, Kim Ye examines themes of consumption, domesticity, and identity, with a particular focus on the evolving roles of labor and care.

m0mmy brain marketplace surveys Kim Ye’s creative trajectory over the past five years, reflecting on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on family-making and market participation. The exhibition’s title plays on the term “mommy brain,” often used pejoratively to describe the cognitive changes in motherhood. Kim Ye reclaims and reinterprets the phrase, positioning it as a site of transformation, negotiation, and multitasking—where personal identity and economic systems converge.

The exhibition features modular video installations that blur traditional artist, medium, and audience distinctions. Drawing from reality television, academic rhetoric, and erotic performance, Kim Ye challenges the boundaries between public and private spheres, using humor and satire to critique cultural narratives around motherhood, labor, and desire. Through this lens, they interrogate how systems of power shape identity, while also confronting societal discomfort with open discussions of women’s bodies and lived experiences.

Founded in 1967, Chapman University’s Guggenheim Gallery is dedicated to fostering critical discourse through innovative exhibitions and programming. This event is free and open to the public. Full press release available through the gallery website.