150x150cm, 2009
Double Restriction of Individualization and Totalitarization
Written by Lee, Sun young(Art Critic)
The solo exhibition of Kim, Jin, 'The Topographic Map of Everyday-ness(PungSok)', illustrates how one can delineate the map of reality where the power is operating in social mechanism everywhere. It does not precondition transparency like a map on the reality. In the works of Kim, Pungsok(everyday life's scene) which is from a fragment of a reality, then affirmed and inherited through time, is sometimes absurd. The topographic map where we follow the flows of the images from one point to another, taking it as another starting line, does not offer the whole view. What really matters is the concrete situation and the context of it, not the universality which assumes that the necessary and sufficient condition is satisfied in all the situations, whether they are called as Pungsok or map, nor the formalism which is rooted on it.
Reality is Different from fixed constellation. Rather it keeps changing, wavering, being re-positioned as one point is added to its entity. In this exhibition, works from 1999 to 2011 are re-contextualized.
150x150cm, 2009
However, it does not mean that the works are biased to the relativism which absolutizes the coincidence itself. They keep calling essence and universality to underline situations and contexts. If one tries to take the strategy of decentralization, he or she should include the center first, which used to be taken as a way to escape from the limitation of conservatism that it only gets around, to accommodate itself to dominant power of a society successfully. A dominant society needs the fear to keep its social structure, as Kim pointed out in her works. Under the title of 'I am afraid of my fears', Kim presents as a series the works, dealing with the crimes, the terrors, a living hell, the broken-bodies. She titles the works with the terms of 'oo Images', to alienate the fears which she represented, and by the alienation, the representations are distinguished themselves from dominant ideologies which always identify with the fears they produces. Deformed abundance and growth generate the fears in a system, and this vague fears are used effectively by dominant ideology to pull out the voluntary agreement of people to fortify its existing systemand power.
The origin of the fears which trivial bad lucks or huge disasters bring us are social problems, rather than unclear existential matters or natural fates in Kim's works. 'The eyes of the Giant are watching us everywhere' series are displayed as if faceless giants are watching the audiences. The works are reminding medieval iconic images, and representing anonymous power by eliminating the parts of the head and facial expression. As the artist said, 'I tried to create the face of the desire of the capitalism(not the capitalists themselves) and the system of it by personifying the contemporary capitalism which already became a religion in our everyday-ness.'
The power has a legal form in the works of Kim as we can notice in the formal suits the figures wear. It hides successfully its arbitrary and violent natures. It is a nation that realizes clearly the relationship between the law and the violence. As M. Weber defined, the state is able to be defined as an entity which claims a "monopoly on the legitimate use of violence". F. Kafka also illustrated well in his work 'The Judgement', the absurdity of the law. According to G. Agamben, he described the law which is transformed as 'the relations of the ideas'(Kant), and the bare life which is controlled by efficient power of the law in his book, 'Homo sacer'. He said that what Kafka described is that kind of life, where the more the law has little contents, the more it becomes important. The pure form of the law is merely the empty form of the relationship. The state, gaining its power in the relationships, is opposed to the society. It suppresses and individualizes the social unity, and its faceless power which monopolizes and controls the value of the objects inevitably produces the victims in the system.
One of 'The eyes of the Giant - ' series is describing a giant holding a globe whose exact position is also at the point of taking attention of the audiences' eyes. The author thinks that the power in late capitalism society is different from the one in modern monopoly capitalism apparently, it only means that the power is transformed as an anonymous one. It does not lose the natures of monopolizing nor concentrating. The perspective in the series of giants emphasizes the power relations in this point of view. Who is taking the position in the picture absorbing all the audiences' attentions, then reflecting them back with so strong lights? The giant appears on the stage which is opened to the audiences, sitting on it like an omnipotent god or powerful magician of iconic picture.
de la memoire, 150x150cm, acrylic on canvas, 2001
The stage is the expression of divine power of king, of central concentration. It is also the tool to fortify the power designed for king, and we are able to find that the two worlds(real world and represented one) are identified. The ideal world is represented toward the order of real world, and the infinite point is exactly positioned in front of the king's eyes. Of course, the position of the painter has been also positioned at the place of the king, but in the works of Kim, we can tell the difference that the perspective belongs to the era of meta-perspective, which is not working as mere illusion. It pulls the eyes of others which call in question on the legibility of oneself into the work. The author said, 'I draw first, think later.'. She opens her works to the body and unconscious process, which implies the skepticism to basic fact or essence. Paul Ricoeur said that basic fact does not mean the fact as it is, in 'Oneself as Another'. On the contrary, we accept the fact only when we finish the process of thinking or working. Transparent consiousness does not exist either. P. Ricoeur does not think that the self stands on the starting line alone independently. 'Oneself, as another', speaks meaningfully in inexplicable tie to impersonal entities, through which art protects itself from the danger to be dissolved into solipsism or individual experiences. Lee, Sun young(Art Critic)
Kimbokjin Art Theory Award(2005), Korean Association of Art Critics Award(2009)
260x197cm, acrylic on canvas, 2011Education
2002 DNSEP Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Art de PARIS-CERGY, France
2000 DNAP Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Art de PARIS-CERGY, France
1999 DAP Ecole des Beaux-arts de Versailles, France
1994 B.F.A Seoul Woman's University, Korea
Solo Exhibitions
2011 Gallery Kunst Doc Seoul, Korea
2009 SPACE OF ART, ETC. Seoul, Korea
2008 Gallery THE K Seoul, Korea
Gallery WAI BANG Seoul, Korea
2007 Gallery KING Seoul, Korea
2005 Gallery Soup Seoul, Korea
2002 Gallerie Airport d'ORLY Orly, France
Gronp Exhibitions
2011 "The last letter from Huynh MAI". Gallery Sangsang Madang, Seoul, Korea
2009 "Seokyo Nanjang". Gallery KING, Seoul, Korea
2008 "10 Captins in Indeco". Gallery Indeco, Seoul, Korea
"20/20 YAF 2rd ". Gallery Kukminilbo, Seoul, Korea
"Hongge river projet". Hongge river, Seoul, Korea
Residency
2006 Haje. Paju, Korea
97x130cm, acrylic on canvas, 2009
130x110cm, 2011
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