Kim Kim Gallery blog
Kim Kim Salon 킴킴 살롱 @_repertory_system
작가인 김나영과 그레고리 마스가 2008년에 설립한 미술 기획사인 <킴킴갤러리>에 관한 이야기와 특히 2016년 부터의 양평을 기반으로 한 활동을 소개하고, 또다른 양평 기반의 기관인 그라운드이위 @ground_iwi 및 작가들을 초대해 워크숍을 열었습니다. 2024. 10. 1.
The 25-Hour Days 第25小時
Imagine if a day extended from 24 to 25 hours.
What kind of life would unfold in that extra hour?
September 26 to December 1, 2024Artists: Cha Jeaminm, Chen Wei-Chen, Chiu Chih-Wei, Chung Seoyoung, Yvan Clédat & Coco Petitpierre, Huang Po-Chih, Kao Ya-Ting, Kong Chun-Hei, Lai Ko-Wei, Lin Guan-Ming, Mohri Yuko, Olaf Nicolai, Shitamichi Motoyuki, Suzuki Yuya, Eason Tsang Ka-Wai, Yaloo, Yong Kian-San
Advisor: Keelung City Government
Co-organizers: Keelung City Cultural Affairs Bureau, Swun’s Corporation
Special Thanks: The Centre Pompidou, Winsin Arts Foundation, Taoyuan Museum of Fine Arts,
큰 사과가 소리없이 silent apple
제7회 창원조각비엔날레 THE 7TH CHANGWON SCULPTURE BIENNALE
- 2024. 9. 27. - 11. 10.
- 성산아트홀,
성산패총,
창원복합문화센터 동남운동장,
창원시립마산문신미술관
김혜순, 「잘 익은 사과」, 『달력 공장 공장장님 보세요』 (서울: 문학과지성사, 2000), p. 9.
감동환, 권오상, 권현빈, 김계옥, 김명희, 김성회·박찬극·석종수·신영식
김익현, 김정숙, 김정혜, 김종영, 남화연, 네빈 알라닥, 노경애, 노송희, 노순천
구로다 다이스케, 다이어그램 게임, 돌로로사 시나가, 로버트 스미슨
로사리오 아니나트, 루오 저쉰, 마사 로슬러, 마이클 딘, 메테 빙켈만
메리 쿨 & 파비오 발두씨, 문신, 미카엘라 베네딕토, 밀물과 썰물, 박나라
박미나, 박석원, 백남준, 사림153, 신도 후유카, 신민, 심이성, 심정수
아라야 라스잠리안숙, 온다 아키, 우아름, 윤정의, 윤지영, 이유성, 이이오카 리쿠
정서영, 정소영, 정현, 제이슨 위, 제일여객, 조이리 미나야, 조전환, 주재환
쥬노 JE 김 & 에바 에인호른, 최고은, 이마즈 케이, 크리스 로, 탠저린 콜렉티브
퉁 원먼, 트랜스필드 스튜디오, 하차연, 홍승혜, 홍영심포지엄
씨앗과 껍질
연사 및 모더레이터: 기혜경, 김동완, 김성은, 김종길, 박성태, 박춘호, 안소연, 이미영, 이솔, 임근준, 임세진, 장지한, 제이슨 위, 캐롤 잉화 루, 패트릭 플로레스
2024. 9. 28.(토) - 9. 29.(일)
성산아트홀 소극장
사전 프로그램 시청각 × 무하유
작가: 노순천, 쥬노 JE 김 & 에바 에인호른
전시 2024. 7. 15.(월) - 7. 28.(일)
퍼포먼스 워크숍 2024. 7. 18.(목), 7. 25.(목)
사전 프로그램을 통해 지역(서울 시청각)과 지역(창원 무하유)을 연결하며 소리와 조각, 상호 배움을 교환하는 교차로를 마련하고자 합니다. 프로그램 주간 중 두 장소에서 쥬노 JE 김 & 에바 에인호른 작가의 소외된 자들을 위한 배움터, ‘크랍슈타트 교육원: 여름강좌’가 열리며, 노순천 작가의 소리 조각 연작 <조각합주단>(2022-2024)이 펼쳐집니다. 프로그램 주간 중 매주 목요일마다 ‘크랍슈타트 교육원’의 공개수업이 퍼포먼스 워크숍의 형식으로 진행됩니다. 쥬노 JE 김 & 에바 에인호른 작가는 노순천 작가의 조각을 크랍슈타트 교육원의 객원교수로 초대하여, 조각, 장소, 이미지, ‘하루'라는 시간 등 평소 ‘듣기'의 대상에 해당하지 않는 것들에 귀 기울여 보는 시간을 가집니다.
종이와 바다와 유리병 편지
작가: 감동환, 김소연 시인
2024. 9. 11.(수) - 9.12.(목), 오전 10시 - 오후 1시
9.13.(금) - 9. 14.(토), 오후 6시 30분 - 9시 30분
창원시립마산문학관
2024 제7회 창원조각비엔날레에 소개될 감동환 작가의 신작 <종이와 바위 사이>는 시와 조각, 조각과 시의 관계를 탐구하는 작업입니다. 감동환 작가는 김소연 시인을 초빙하여 창원시민을 대상으로 하는 시 쓰기 교실 <종이와 바다와 유리병 편지>를 9월11일부터 14일까지 창원시립마산문학관에서 운영합니다.
종
작가: 온다 아키, 박지하 퍼포머
퍼포먼스; 2024. 9. 27.(금)
성산아트홀 2층
제일창원
작가: 제일여객
2024. 9. 27.(금) - 9. 29.(일), 10. 18.(금) - 10. 20.(일), 11. 7.(목) - 11. 10.(일)
고도, 중심
작가: 트랜스필드 스튜디오
투어 퍼포먼스; 2024. 10. 20.(일)
성산패총
돌림송-목소리가 집 밖으로 새어 나와
작가: 탠저린 콜렉티브
투어 퍼포먼스; 2024. 10. 1.(화)
동남운동장
흙의 마음, 물의 마음
작가: 밀물과 썰물
2024. 10. 6.(일)
10. 13.(일), 10. 14.(월)
성산아트홀 1층 ‘구들’
손 우물 조각, 길이 길이
작가: 노경애, 김명신 퍼포머
2024. 10. 19.(토), 10. 26.(토)
성산아트홀
갈라파고스의 땅거북들: 사림153의 타임라인
작가: 사림153
2024. 10. 12.(토)
성산아트홀 1층 ‘구들’
이미지 조각 나눔: 사림153 비평활동
작가: 사림153
2024. 10. 26.(토)
성산아트홀 1층 ‘구들’
지역미술은 무슨 꿈을 꾸는가?
작가: 사림153
2024. 11. 9.(토)
성산아트홀 1층
In the food for love _ presentation
2024. 8. 22일 구민자 작가와 <In the Food for Love> 프레젠테이션을 진행하였습니다.
구민자는 일상에서 기인하는 의문에서 시작되는 사적인 퍼포먼스를 바탕으로 사진, 영상, 설치, 드로잉 등 다양한 매체로 작업하는 시각예술가입니다. 최근에는 특정 맥락과 역사, 의미, 사람들과의 관계 등을 드러내는 매개로서의 음식을 다루는 작업을 합니다.
킴킴갤러리와 구민자 작가는 2018년 양평의 결혼 이주자들에게 그들의 고향 요리를 배우고, 이들의 이주의 여정과 모국의 문화와 경험을 추적함으로 시작한 협업 연작인 @in_the_food_for_love_를 진행해 왔습니다. 리서치, 레시피 북과 식기 출시, 식자재 마트 경영, 다양한 요리 워크숍 등으로 확장된 이들의 여정과 구민자 작가의 작업 중 음식과 관련된 작업들을 소개하고, 작가가 진행 중인 작업의 일환인
쿠스쿠스를 요리해 참여자들과 같이 나누는 시간을 가졌습니다.
구민자 작가의 2번째 워크샵은 이어서 9월 30일에 합니다.
2번째 워크샵에서는 구민자 작가가 진행 중인 <불편부당 요리, neutral cuisine >의 중간 과정을 공유합니다. 불편부당(不偏不黨)'은 어느 쪽에도 치우치지 않는다는 뜻으로 과거와 현재를 포함하여 여러 문화 집단에서 금기로 제외되는 음식이 때로는 차별이나 배제의 기제가 되기도 한다는 것을 다루며, 다양한 문화적 사회적 종교적 배경 혹은 특정 신념을 지닌 사람들 누구나 다 함께 먹을 수 있는 음식에 대한 작업입니다. 이 작업의 중간 과정에서 작가가 구상한 음식을 같이 만들고 시식하며, 참여자들도 각자 조리법을 구상하며 의견을 공유합니다.
일시: 9월 30일. 목요일. 3-5시
강사; 구민자 @gugookukoo
진행; 킴킴갤러리 @kim_kim_gallery
장소: 레퍼토리 시스템 @_repertory_system (서종면 황순원로 85)
참가신청은 DM 주세요.
후원 ; 양평문화재단, 경기문화재단
#킴킴갤러리 #퍼포먼스 #중동음식 #레퍼토리 시스템 #원데이클래스 #레퍼토리아틀리에 #구민자 #방법으로서의식문화
당신은 어디서 온 누구인가요?
이주민과 선주민, 주변과 경계를 예민하게 감각하는 작가들의 이야기🔹모더레이터 : 이승연 @e__oeo
🔹참여작가 : 김옥선, 조혜진 @oksunkim_tigerisland33 @hey.joc.hey
📍일시 : 2024. 8. 18. 일요일, 14:00-15:00
📍장소 : 제주시 조천읍 남조로 2023
UNBOXING PROJECT 3: Maquette 언박싱 프로젝트 3: 마케트
권오상, 김병호, 김인배, 김한샘, 김홍석, 돈선필, 문이삭, 신미경, 양정욱, 오종, 이동훈, 이수경, 이원우, 이은영, 이은우, 이안리, 이현수, 정서영, 정소영, 조재영, 차슬아, 최고은, 최하늘, 한경우, 한상아, 허지혜, 현정윤
2024. 4. 10 - 5. 12
뉴스프링프로젝트(NewSpringProject) @newspringproject“모든 문명에서 가장 중요한 조각은 오히려 작다. 거의 모두.
이집트의 조각이든 선사 시대 조각이든 그것들은 대부분 거의 같은 크기이다.
그리고 나는 사실 그러한 크기가 직관적으로 가장 자연스럽고,
사람들이 실제로 보는 방식에 어울린다고 믿는다.”
알베르토 자코메티1)
언박싱 프로젝트 x 뉴스프링프로젝트는 2024년 4월 10일부터 5월 12일까지 그룹전 《UNBOXING PROJECT 3: Maquette (언박싱 프로젝트 3: 마케트)》를 개최한다. 작은 크기의 작품이 전하는 커다란 감동을 회화로 선보인 지난 두 번의 전시에 이어 세 번째 프로젝트는 작은 오브제로 이루어진 전시를 보여준다.
일반적으로 미술에서 마케트(maquette)란 조각 제작을 위한 예비 스케치로서 조각을 어떠한 접근과 방법으로 만들지 구상하고 구현될 결과를 예측하기 위해 만드는 모형을 뜻한다. 회화에 드로잉이 있다면 조각에서는 마케트가 예술가의 아이디어를 1차적으로 투영하는 준비 단계로 여겨진다. 하지만 이번 전시는 스케치나 준비 단계를 의미하는 마케트가 아닌, 대형 작품과 달리 조각가의 형태 및 규모에 대한 감각을 오롯이 반영하며 그의 물리적ˑ신체적ˑ개념적 개입으로 완성되는 작은 작품으로서 그 의미를 강조하기 위해 상징적ˑ역설적으로 마케트란 제목을 붙인다.
조각으로 인간의 실존을 재현한 자코메티(Alberto Giacometti)는 작은 크기의 작품에 대해 규모에 대한 자신의 인식과 경험을 가장 잘 나타낼 수 있는 ‘자연스런 사이즈(natural size)’라 일컬은 바 있다. 작은 크기의 작품 제작을 위해 제한된 틀을 박스에 넣어 작가에게 보내며 새로운 작품을 커미션하는 <언박싱 프로젝트>는 이처럼 작은 오브제가 담을 수 있는 예술가의 시ˑ공간적 감각과 응축된 작업 세계를 나타내기 위해 한국 미술계에서 조각 및 설치를 주요 매체로 활용하는 대표적 작가 27명을 초대했다.
이번 전시를 위해 특별히 제작한 좌대를 참여작가에게 제공하고 이를 일종의 독립적 전시 공간으로 인식하며 작지만 작가의 ‘친밀한’ 개입이 있기에 ‘거대한’ 오브제를 만들 것을 의뢰하였다. 그 결과 참여작가 27인이 기획 의도와 주제 및 틀에 조응해 만든 신작 27점을 선보인다. 예술가가 지닌 조각 규모에 대한 경험과 해석을 나타내는 전시작품은 새로운 시ˑ공간성을 창출하며 크기를 초월하는 감동을 관객에게 전하고, 입체적 형(形)의 감각적ˑ미학적ˑ감성적 힘을 ‘자연스럽게 직관적으로’ 경험하는 장을 열 것이라 기대한다.
2022년 첫 전시 개최 후 세 번째를 맞이하는 <언박싱 프로젝트>는 큐레이터 변현주와 아트 어드바이저 채민진이 기획한 프로젝트로 압도적 크기의 작품이나 스펙터클이 주는 감탄보다 작은 작품이 전하는 감동이 때로는 더 오래, 더 깊이 각인되었던 경험을 반추하며 시작하였고, 작은 박스에 들어가는 크기의 작품을 선보인다. 참여작가에게 제한된 틀에 맞춰 각 프로젝트의 주제에 부응하는 작품을 제작하길 커미션하며 전달하고, 작가의 신작을 언박싱하여 전시한다. <언박싱 프로젝트>는 예술의 물리적 이동성을 전시 프로세스 전면에 드러내고 특정한 틀 안에서 만들어진 작품을 통해 개별 작가의 서로 다른 예술적 실천을 보다 강조하며 전시 체계에 대해 질문을 던지는 큐레토리얼 실험이기도 하다.
관객을 예술가의 작업 세계가 응축된 작은 크기의 작품으로 가까이 다가오도록 초대하는 이 프로젝트는 매해 다른 주제의 기획 전시로 다양한 매체를 다루며 지속하고, 2024년 11월에는 로스앤젤레스에 위치한 VSF(Various Small Fires)에서 두 번째 에디션 작품으로 《UBP 3.2 in LA: Maquette》 를 개최할 예정이다. 서울을 넘어 LA 아트신에 대표적 동시대 한국 예술가들을 실험적 틀로 소개하고, 이후 유럽 및 전 세계로 펼쳐 나갈 계획이다.
https://arthub.co.kr/sub01/board05_view.htm?No=50939
다름아름
■전시장소 : 헬로우뮤지움 (서울시 성동구 12길 20) https://www.hellomuseum.com/
■운영시간 : 10:00-18:00 (월요일 휴관)
■참여작가 : 구민자, 김유정, 이봉욱, 정연두, 조영주, 하루k , 흑표범
■협력기관: 경희대자연사박물관, 성동구가족센터, 세계시민포럼
■주 최 : 문화체육관광부, ICOM
■주 관 : 국립박물관문화재단, 헬로우뮤지움
이것은 부산이 아니다: 전술적 실천
MEDIUM: 매체, 예술의 유형, 재료
5월 17일 (금) 오프닝 오후 4시
5월 19일 (일) 오후 3시 / 오후 3시 30분 / 오후 4시 30분
5월 26일 (일 ) 오후 3시 / 오후 3시 30분 / 오후 4시 30분
6월 2일 (일) 오후 3시 / 오후 3시 30분 / 오후 4시 30분
매체는 예술의 유형(예: 퍼포먼 스, 회화, 조각, 판화)뿐만 아니라 예술 작품이 만들어지는 재료 모두를 지칭한다.
WC The 장하지 않는다. The 않고 생활에서 녹아져 나오는 수행적 과정이 있는 작업들이다.
디나 이주영 이이난 주재환 파리즈 허윤희
Wirloof Blanche Endive Witty
Chung Seoyoung on the Density of Objects
https://ocula.com/magazine/conversations/chung-seoyoung/
In Conversation with Lauren Cornell
New York, 18 April 2024
Chung Seoyoung. Courtesy the artist and Tina Kim Gallery. Photo: Charles Roussel.
In the mid-1990s, Chung Seoyoung gained recognition in Korea for her use of unorthodox materials, employing commonplace and industrial objects to create her sculptural installations.
Chung stresses minimal intervention, altering objects into new forms that produce different relations with one another. Road (1993), for example, consists of seven plastic buckets on wheeled stools. Each bucket holds wooden balls with intersecting roads drawn on them—a makeshift map that changes with the tiniest movement.
For Sink (2011), a functional sink was removed from a defunct model house and reconfigured without its faucet and handles, presented at a lower-than-average height, with one end propped up with stones. The incongruity of combining natural and artificial materials is paralleled in the bronze-cast pants in Trousers Peel (2024), unravelled on a plywood table with one heavily loaded leg.
The lack of concrete meaning in Chung's sculptures resounds in the title of her latest solo exhibition at Tina Kim Gallery in New York. With no Head nor Tail (21 March–20 April 2024) invokes a similar absence of direction: as the artist explains in this conversation, despite the number of references she can bring into the artwork, 'in the end, I don't think that really matters.'
With no Head nor Tail follows from What I Saw Today—Chung's 2022 retrospective exhibition at Seoul Museum of Art, which also featured her key works from the early 1990s to the present. In both exhibitions, time is displaced twice: once when Chung created them, decontextualising their original materials, and within the exhibition space, where they are presented in a non-chronological order.
In this transcribed conversation with Lauren Cornell, Chief Curator at Hessel Museum of Art at CCS Bard in New York, Chung discusses the density of objects and the nuanced role of language in her practice, which she treats as a medium to create different realities.
LCI would like to discuss the work Sink (2011). It is the very first piece that you encounter when you come into the gallery; it's a sculpture in the centre of the front room. It is a significant work of yours that was included in What I Saw Today, your retrospective exhibition at the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) in 2022, and was first shown in an exhibition called Apple vs. Banana in 2011, which was held in a defunct model home in Seoul. Can you discuss how Sink came to be?
CSYWhen I first started came across the model house, I conceived it as one big piece of art. It was constructed in an effort to build apartments in Korea, which were a sign of wealth in the 1990s, particularly in Apgujeong District in Gangnam, south of the Han River of Seoul. It hadn't been used for 10 years or so, and I opened its doors for the first time since then for that exhibition.
And when I opened the model house, I realised that there were a lot of these objects inside that were supposed to be functional for human existence. But time had stopped, everything had stopped when I opened the doors of this house. That meant I could do anything with it. So I thought that I could create something based on what was going on in that particular apartment, both in terms of its environmental conditions and the objects within it.
I took off the sink from the wall and reorganised the objects that were surrounding it to support it. And when I began the process, I realised that it would read as a sink, but at the same time that it would not be a real sink per se, because I'd taken it out of the context of the model house.
Really, the question was: 'how much can I change the sink?' And for me, what was important was to transform it in the most exact way with minimal intervention. I could have transformed it in a quite drastic way, and it could address, for instance, the history of the sink and how it came to be situated within the domestic environment. But for me, the focal point was to intervene into the object as minimally as possible, and then bring it to be viewed in a different context. I wanted to discover the characteristics of the sink that were implied within the object, but change one or two of its characteristics and bring it to a completely different point. And that's really what I consider to be a central point in my practice.
Sink is an interesting object because it arrived after a very long process of what I refer to as 'negotiation'. There was also the additional element of distance where I brought it to New York for this exhibition after such a long time. The amount of distance and time that the sink had travelled is something that I cannot really explain myself. In a way, different people can come up with various meanings behind such a gap in time and distance so that they understand the course of its existence.
The title of the exhibition, Apple vs. Banana, encapsulates the moment before and after my career. 'Apple versus Banana' could have been 'Apple and Banana' or 'Apple comma Banana', but the moment I inserted 'versus' in that title, apple and banana started having a different relationship. And that kind of conflictual relationship that I'd formed between the apple and the banana interested me, as it created an active state in which I could mobilise a lot of different possibilities.
LCYour exhibition at Tina Kim Gallery, like your retrospective What I Saw Today, wasn't laid out chronologically, which to me is significant because it blurs the time periods and eras in which the works were made. In a way, they feel 'out of time.' And yet, because the materials have these specific references, they are still charged with history and place.
This non-chronological installation dramatises a way that your work has been described, which is that it speaks to collective memory and in particular, the collective memory of Korea. But this memory also isn't fixed, as it's always evolving and because everyone comes to it differently. Can you speak about the notion of collective memory through Road (1993)?
CSYLet me start with the title of the exhibition. In 'With no Head nor Tail', it is assumed that the tail was there, but it's not there anymore. So even from the starting point of this title, I am trying to make myself different or make myself into an entity that I completely do not know. As always, the title of an exhibition or a work is a condensation of many different ideas of working as an artist. As an artist, you can bring in a lot of references to prove why a particular work is important. But then, in the end, I don't think that really matters. Everyone may think that something is very important, but maybe none of what everyone thinks is very important. This idea of leaving somewhere empty-handed or being empty-handed perhaps touches at the most fundamental aspects of art, as you don't make art for any guarantee of success.
I'm interested in that idea of 'no head, nor tail' because without a head, you're dead. The idea of no head is assuming this state of urgency. And thinking about the state of urgency was important because when I was putting together the show, it wasn't necessarily a retrospective per se, but it was a show that tries to condense a rather long period within my practice. And somehow in the title, I'm worrying about this tail that never even existed.
Let's return to Road. The idea of Road doesn't come from the idea of memory that is very broad, or from the kind of memory that has a very specific reference to art or literature. For me, what's interesting is this idea that we all share a certain memory and that individual objects can have individual memories. The fact that there's a shared memory—or, as you called it 'collective' memory—is very interesting. For me, this question started to form when I came across a journal article of sorts about the human brain. The main idea of the article was that when you see something three-dimensional, there is a process of inputting that information into the brain that treats the object as if it were a flat, two-dimensional thing. Then the brain goes through the process of transforming this information into a three-dimensional object. That was quite interesting to me.
And this was a piece of information that resonated with something else that I had thought before: when I was driving on the highway for a long period of time, like six, seven hours, I realised that actually what I was seeing was just a very simple view in front of me, this road with a yellow line in the middle. Even if I travelled through this immeasurable distance that required me to drive for six, seven hours, what I, in the end, had was this two-dimensional image of this road, this line in front.
While I was thinking about this very broad range of time and space, I came across this idea of the container as a signifier of collective memory. When I made Road in Germany in 1993, they were using this plastic container to mix cement, so I was thinking about how that object in and of itself could be a container of collective memory of that particular moment in time. And I wanted it to portray it in a very light-hearted and humorous way, because the container and the object inside can roll around with the wheels connected below. For me, this is an indication of how unstable the object, let alone the overall installation, can be, and how we can think about collective memory in a similarly 'unstable' fashion.
LCThe open-ended aspects of your work and its humour make me think of how so many pieces in this exhibition deal with language. You have quite a few glazed ceramics on the platform in the second room. Some of them have figures like Who? (2023) or Bear? (2023) and some of them use phrases and questions that are nonsensical, provocative, open—they stretch your mind. One of them in Korean says, 'in the deep past we wandered without a home and didn't work so much.' And one of them in English says, 'nature has no goals right?' How does language operate in your work as a kind of material?
CSYIt is somewhat paradoxical for me to think about language. Language is interesting to me, because it is a tool that everyone uses, just like the everyday objects that I use in my sculptures. Changing something small about a particular object transforms it into a completely different entity, and the fact that I can change language and its location ever so slightly is a very good indication of how I can use it as a tool—just like how I brought the sink and changed its minute specificities to bring it into a different reality. As such, I am using or transforming languages with the same sentiment or attitude that I have towards sculptures to bring them into a new reality. I'm curious about how language can make us understand or doubt or even surprised. And that's why, as I said earlier, how I use language may seem paradoxical, because it is a way for me to face reality in a completely different way.
Let me share a realisation that I had this morning, which was about why I work in the way I do. There was a show that I did in 1998 with a few friends, which I hadn't thought of for a long time, that just came to my mind. It was titled Feed+Back. What interested me and my friends was this notion of the back. The back is a part of our body, completely attached to the frontal half, but you only can see it through a mediating object; you can never see it yourself. And the fact that I'm only able to see through a mediated form creates a rather mysterious conflictual relationship between what we can understand and perceive immediately and what we cannot. And I think that's how I started using 'versus' as a way to think about relationships. That's also a point at which I started thinking about a way of finding reality that I mentioned earlier.
LCYou studied sculpture in Seoul National University in the 1980s. Then you moved to Stuttgart and you were there from 1989 to 1996. You returned to Korea in 1996, which, as we know, was the time that the country was undergoing a financial crisis that led to a major national reckoning and precipitated social change. This was a tumultuous time to return. How did studying abroad and returning at that moment influence your practice, which also rose to such prominence at that time?
CSYWhen I look back at that moment, I think, 'something invaded my retina.' When I returned to Korea at the end of the 90s, it felt like everything in Korea had just literally invaded my senses.
Because it was obviously a society that was very much in flux, there were a lot of forces that tried to control what it was going through. But there were a lot of things that were falling apart as well—the system was quite literally out of control. These things came across very vividly. The scenes in which certain objects were getting out or falling out of the system were particularly interesting to me.
What was important was to not analyse nor research the phenomena of this society or try to understand in logical terms how this society came to be, but to help others see directly what I was seeing. And I think this is a point that also harkens back to the title of the SeMA retrospective, What I Saw Today. The central question for me was about going through minimal intervention and allowing people to see the problem itself—finding the exact point at which I allowed others to see what I was seeing.
Much of my thinking revolves around my intuition. Intuition is not something that can be acquired very suddenly or out of nowhere. It really requires layers of accumulated thinking.
LCFollowing up on that point of intuition, Sung Hwan Kim, in an interview with you included in the SeMA catalogue, asked you about your thoughts on what he called the 'schizophrenic state' of Korean society and art in the 1990s, and on how Korean contemporary art was historicised from a global perspective. I run a graduate programme and we think a lot about how periods are historicised, and how we can examine and unravel those processes. I thought your answer to Sung Hwan was really revealing, and I'm going to excerpt it:
'Isn't the so-called schizophrenic state of South Korean society a cycle of this: life is bound and dragged around by events only to eventually disappear into oblivion, and a piece of that life reappears in an unexpected form at an unexpected place, either assaulting someone or left not even noticed?'
I pulled out that quote because I think that your sculpture could also be described in those terms as 'a piece of that life reappearing in an unexpected form.' Your sculptures aren't making a direct address to current events, but they are encoding specific times and lives in them.
I thought we could bring this up to the present and talk about how this operates in one of the new works that's in this show. Could you speak a bit about Red (2024) and what this 'encodes'?
CSYTo think about this recent work, it's important for me to think about the SeMA retrospective and the problems and questions I was dealing with at that moment. At the time, I was thinking a lot about everyday objects and sculptures that I had worked with for a long time, but it was quite difficult for me to think about them in the same way. I concluded that this was because objects and sculptures have a certain density, and I felt that density was really thinning out and getting lost.
I was preparing for the SeMA retrospective during the summer as it opened in September. I had seen all these cicadas around Korea as they become active in the summer and saw that they had shed and just left their shells on the trees. I was coming to recognise that the way in which the density of objects thinned out was actually very similar to how the cicadas shed and left their shells. That was a moment that really hit me in terms of how I was thinking about the status of objects today.
So I wanted to approach this question as a sculptor. The answer was that I should 'make' objects rather than 'rely' on them. In other words, I had to 'make' something, rather than 'change' pre-existing objects. And this is why I made Red, which is on view here. It is an object that I made, but it is not a real jacket per se. It's just like when you have bad eyesight and your images don't line up properly. It's a jacket that is a bit 'off', to put it casually.
There's a direct motivation behind this work. It can be dated back to 2017, when I came to New York for my solo exhibition titled Ability vs. Invisibility here at Tina Kim Gallery. I went to see the Charlotte Brontë show at the Morgan Library, and there were a lot of postcards and drawings that she made, as well as various items of clothing. And this moment of seeing her clothes right in front of me was quite interesting, because they were not shown in a vitrine. They weren't protected in any way and were quite literally sitting in front of me. And this moment was quite confusing, because I was seeing a life-size body of a human being that is so tiny and humble, which I'd never encountered before.
I felt that when I saw that clothing, there was a bit of a space between the dress and myself that wasn't quite estimable or definable. I think this is similar to the ways in which we think about the sensations or experiences that have passed. I held that experience in me when I was looking at Charlotte Brontë's dress, and then when I came back to the studio later on, I decided to focus on that moment to address the questions of the present.