2nd Exhibition: Chun Ja Kim
- TRAVERSE: LIE DOWN, DIAGONALLY
- Date: 6th Aug (Tue) - 1st Sep (Sun)
'Yieodo' Island is a place where fishermen encounter heavy rain and accidentally arrive at the crossroads of life and death. It has been handed down orally as a symbol of ‘life and death’ as a mortal fate and the boundaries where they intersect. It can be seen that this is a question about existence according to time, and an attempt to reconcile it like Ba-lim-jil (gradation) for distinguishing and reshaping its abstractness.
In contrast, in modern times, all are concretized and formalized into “event”, transmitted and spread through countless articles, news, and social media in various forms. This transformation occurs not only in the realm of concepts and abstraction, but also in specific spaces. The steady flight through the gaps in the sky has made movement from here to there and landing in there, as a routine. It means that a marker for the absence of existence has begun to emerge.
This resembles the process of actualizing and redefining a fateful and mystified boundary. That is, existence is monitored and recorded. However, our existential “Residuesphere of the Soul” still transcends daily life, evoking imagination, dreaming, and enabling ceremonial action. This means we are still in the realm of abstractions such as “fate”.
Perhaps this is why diasporas, while discovering and drifting through the world, still yearn to grasp something tangible. They resort to digital images, videos, or voices to reassert it to make their “existence” known again.
I see these actions as a kind of modern Ba-lim-jil (gradation) that immediately escapes from the actual scene, assuming a resting place in the realm of abstraction, and wishing to lie down there. This context is consistent with the meaning of the Ieodo tale in that it transforms absence into <something> between existence and non-existence.
Now, what exists in YIEODO is not them, but us.
Through this exhibition, I ask you to reconsider the concept of absence and to examine the transcending relationships and transitions like a letter in a bottle, and through that, I desire to observe the silhouette of the de-territorialized soul.
Artist
Chunja Kim’s work is rooted in personal complexes and revolves around the keywords 'boundary', 'relationship', and 'direction'. In his pieces, the shaman figure is used as an object that borrows its image from Korean shamanistic beliefs, which is then re-presented or reinterpreted. Through this process, he discovers and sketches concepts that are superficially contrasting and yet interwoven, such as past and present, horizontal and vertical, life and death, male and female, exploring their fusion and separation. His work can be described as floating or adrift within the unfinished realm of contemporary art. He participated in several exhibitions in Korea and completed his master's degree in painting at Hongik University in 2019. Currently, he continues his activities between Korea and France.
Contact
@chun.ja.kim_artiste
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