Sokeuk-dong, Jongno-gu
15th May- August 1st
Opening hours: Tuesday- Sunday 11am- 7pm, closed Monday
Admission: Free
http://artsonje.org
Kim Beom, 'Spectacle,' 2010, courtesy of Artsonje Centre
Last week, I went to see the Kim Beom show in Artsonje Centre, Jongno-gu. Consisting of works executed in various mediums, the pieces made me double take, squint, scratch my head, furrow my brow and laugh out loud. They are funny and intelligent works which invite viewers into an upset and unfamiliar world, one that is well worth entering into!
Engage in eye contact with a plain, double layered canvas with two eyes cut out and find yourself looking back over your shoulder to check if it’s still staring. It will be! Try and fail to find a path through the headache inducing black and white mazes depicted in the ‘Intimate Suffering’ series (2008). See if tilting your head to consider ‘A Draft of a School of Inversion’ (2009) at different angles helps make sense out of it. It won’t! Take in the spectacle of ‘dead’ inanimate objects puffing, swelling and deteriorating in ways far more familiar in rotting organic matter in ‘Inanimated Objects’ (2008). And what’s that? An antelope hunting a cheetah in ‘Spectacle’ (2010)?
Kim Beom, 'A Rock That Was Taught It Was a Bird,' 2008, courtesy of Artsonje Centre
For me, the highlights are on the second floor, where numerous video lectures are being conducted to a series of inanimate objects. A bowl, mug, knife, fan and other banal everyday objects sit in little chairs in a mock classroom set up, facing a blackboard, ‘listening’ intently to their teacher’s definition of them in ‘Objects Being Taught They are Nothing but Tools’ (2008). Other works include ‘A Rock That Was Taught It Was a Bird (2010), and ‘A Ship That Was Taught There is No Sea (2010).
It is genuinely refreshing experience humour in a gallery setting and to hear other gallery go-ers giggling. However, this does not mean that Kim’s work may be passed off as frivolous. He highlights conflicts between internal and external realities and encourages viewers to think about socially constructed perceptions. The video lectures highlight our tendency as humans to believe what we are told or read, despite any well know sayings! The means by which we are educated at school and by our families, as well as first hand experience, forms our views of the world. We don’t need to look too far back in history to see examples of how this can be manipulated to devastating effects.
So, take the time to step into Kim’s fantastical universe. Why you wouldn’t is Beom-d me.
Tags: Artsonje Centre, contemporary Korean art, modern Korean art