Theresa Hak Kyung Cha & Jimmy Robert
distinguish the limit from the edge
CCA Berlin is pleased to host the book launch of distinguish the limit from the edge—an artist book that presents an intergenerational dialogue between Theresa Hak Kyung Cha and Jimmy Robert. Their connection emerges through the intersection of text and image between selected work from Cha’s oeuvre and Robert’s practice that share the formal strategies of the fold.
The launch will take place in the basement of CCA Berlin and will be followed by a conversation between Jimmy Robert and Erin Honeycutt on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s influence on their work and on the book as a form of dialogue.
Free entry. The conversation will be held in English.
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha & Jimmy Robert, distinguish the limit from the edge, 2025. Courtesy Jimmy Robert and Book Works.
Robert’s work utilizes paper as a sculptural material, and his hand sometimes appears to shape the page. For Cha, the fold is present in her compositions enmeshing language through strategies of visual poetry, as in L’Image Concrete feuille L’Objet Abstrait (1976), and Untitled (après tu parti) (1976) which are both previously unpublished. The possibility of overlaying one’s work with the other, emphasised by the book’s spiral-bound double spine, and reverse fold-outs, forges an intimacy, a shared sensibility, and an encounter with the corporeal. In conversation with editor Jacob Korczynski, Robert refers to Fred Moten’s In The Break, stating, ‘Suddenly time falters. Words don’t go there. And if words don’t go there, then what does?’
distinguish the limit from the edge is commissioned by Book Works, edited by Jacob Korczynski and designed by Wolfe Hall. The book is published in association with Participant Inc. with the support of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Korea Arts Management Services, after the exhibition:
flipping through pages keeping a record of time: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha & Jimmy Robert curated by Jacob Korczynski at Participant Inc., 6 September – 3 November, 2024, supported by a Fall 2020 Curatorial Research Fellowship from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
Jimmy Robert was born in Guadeloupe (FR) in 1975 and currently lives and works between Paris and Berlin. Robert was the subject of a mid-career survey at Nottingham Contemporary in 2020, which travelled to Museion, Bolzano and CRAC Occitanie, Sète in 2021. Recent solo exhibitions include Moderna Museet, Malmö (2023); Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (2022); Künstlerhaus Bremen (2022); The Hunterian, Glasgow (2021); La Synagogue De Delme, France (2016); Museum M, Leuven (2017); Power Plant, Toronto (2013); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2012); and Jeu de Paume, Paris (2012). Robert’s performances have also been presented at Tate Britain, London; MoMA, New York and Migros Museum, Zurich.
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha was born on March 4, 1951 in Busan, South Korea. Her family remained in Korea until 1962 when they emigrated to America, settling first in Hawai’i and then moving to San Francisco in 1964. After graduating from high school, Cha enrolled briefly at the University of San Francisco and then transferred to the University of California at Berkeley where she continued her studies for ten years, receiving four degrees: B.A. Comparative Literature (1973), B.A. Art (1975), M.A. Art (1977), and M.F.A. Art (1978). In 1976 Cha lived in Europe, studying at the Centre d’Etudes Americaine du Cinema in Paris and living briefly in Amsterdam. In August of 1980 Cha moved to New York City. She worked for Tanam Press, producing Dictée, a book-form collage of poetry, found text, and images; and editing Apparatus, an anthology of writings on film theory. In 1982 Cha was the artist-in-residence at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax. On November 5, 1982, Cha was murdered in New York City.
Erin Honeycutt is a writer and bookmaker based in Berlin, where they run CUTT PRESS, a publishing project dedicated to pamphlets, poetry chapbooks, artist books, and reprints. Their work explores the material life of language and the evolving institution of the book. Erin is the author of Dear Enheduanna (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2025) and Night School forthcoming from MA BIBLIOTHÈQUE.