Andrew Kung
A River Once Dreamed
2024 En Foco Fellowship Exhibition
Nov 6 - 29, 2025
In A River Once Dreamed, I recompose the Hudson River School’s romanticized paintings of the river valley by staging scenes of Asian American men cast along the Hudson. Each constructed scene - while challenging the iconography of the American landscape - recontextualizes the relationship between nature and belonging, identity and masculinity, and history and erasure. Historically, the national landscape - depicted through the lens of Manifest Destiny and the paintings of the Hudson River School - has signified a collective and imagined cultural identity that dictated participation in the natural world. Despite major contributions on American land - constructing the Transcontinental Railroad, advancing the nation’s agricultural infrastructure, pledging allegiance in war - Asian migrants and their histories remain largely misrepresented and invisible. The Hudson functions less as a site of geographical documentation - of its landscapes and its inhabitants - and more as a symbolic, political backdrop that interrogates the tableau's representation of national identity. Through intimate scenes of friendship, the casted subjects are reimagined as cultural citizens of America’s first iconic landscape, the Hudson River Valley, and are ultimately reclaiming and contesting the history of land ownership, power, and their stake in the American pastoral.
Zoom Artist Talk: Wed, Nov 19 at 5:30 PM (PT)
Andrew Kung (American, b. 1991, he/him) is a photographer living and working in New York. His work often centers on contested ideas of place, identity, and belonging. From subverting the male gaze to exploring the absences and omissions in Asian American history, he often draws upon personal experiences to present a reimagined cultural citizenship. Andrew has previously been awarded by Light Work, NYSCA/NYFA, Houston Center of Photography, LensCulture, Photolucida, En Foco, PhotoVogue, British Journal of Photography, and WePresent.
En Foco, Inc. is a non-profit that supports U.S. based photographers of African, Asian, Latino, Native American, and Pacific Islander heritage. Founded in 1974, En Foco makes their work visible to the art world, yet remains accessible to under-served communities. Through exhibitions, workshops, events, and publications, it provides professional recognition, honoraria, and assistance to photographers as they grow into different stages of their careers.