A place of transparent turbulence
Nayeon Koo
Inbai Kim’s recent work Count (2007) is a sudden disrupts the symbols and limitations that measure the world in terms of function, and converts the perception of the subject into the original physiological realm of the ‘mass’. The huge head, two undecipherable round matters, and the particularly small feet which come from the original body seem to be severed from each other without any physical similarity among them; however, they actually form a strong connection to each other through an invisible construction. They are all independent entities while being the same subject. Such a state, in which the self and the other are indistinguishable, destroys the mathematical unit itself, and forms an ambiguous relationship of tension between the whole and the individual.
Such tension which penetrates Kim’s work is related to the autonomy of the perception of the world which escapes being defined through a definite structure. As a medium and material of experience, the body draws in the external subjects within us. However, what is required for this is a fixed format, such as mathematics of counting or limitations of the vision. The number is a small range selected from infinite progression, and the vision selects or captures a moment of the infinite world in a small field of vision. Kim questions the logic of perception that is inevitably bound to such structured world. His work is process of discovering the world, in a synthesis of the senses through the arbitrary arrangement and construction of the body.
Such tension which penetrates Kim’s work is related to the autonomy of the perception of the world which escapes being defined through a definite structure. As a medium and material of experience, the body draws in the external subjects within us. However, what is required for this is a fixed format, such as mathematics of counting or limitations of the vision. The number is a small range selected from infinite progression, and the vision selects or captures a moment of the infinite world in a small field of vision. Kim questions the logic of perception that is inevitably bound to such structured world. His work is process of discovering the world, in a synthesis of the senses through the arbitrary arrangement and construction of the body.
Place of the face
No one can see their face through their own eyes. This primal lack is replaced by the experience of gazing at the others through one’s two eyes, and projecting oneself at such point. In particular, the face is the very origin of the lack of one self, as well as the starting point of the reasoning about the anonymity of the unfamiliar body. This moves us to the place of the text. However, in Kim’s work, there is either no face, or only a ‘space for a face’. This demonstrates Kim’s skepticism on text which lures as a conventional iconic notion.
What occupy the space where the face has disappeared are trajectories of senses that root from within and penetrate the surface. The space of the face is regarded as a tabula rasa in Deller hon Dainy, in which the three heads signify a space where the paths of life, as proposed by the framework of the world, has been emptied out, and a space which is waiting to be filled with unpredictable subjective energy. This is also demonstrated in the fact that his early works simultaneously take both forms of drawing and sculpture, while occupying a point of exchange where they infuse into each other. In I Love You, the space of the face renders meaningless the differentiation between the inside and outside, flat and 3-dimensional, and drawing and sculpture. Like a zero ground, his face is a site where the layers of norms are neutralized and the phantasmagoria of unfamiliar experiences are illuminated.
In Operator, courses of thin quivering forces flow out of the face. The three heads all come from the same cast; however, this becomes the solid tripod which becomes entangled in an energy of chaos, and the core which holds the lines that spurt out like jets of liquid. Therefore, what Kim fulfills on the space of the face, from which the face has been wiped off, is the structure of rich dynamics. In Assembly, sharp and heavy dark mass breaks and pierces out through the head. Such rejection of the encoded framework of cognition is reduced into the dark skin of the beak or weapon-like form, and the times of the traces that remain on it. Then in Heavy Light is Light, the head becomes a gold body in which the processes of the bulky texture and force have been condensed. The signifiers of the movement, formed through the direct contact between the medium and the body of the artist without any mediator, are charged with a sense of transparency that vibrates the illusion of the head.
What occupy the space where the face has disappeared are trajectories of senses that root from within and penetrate the surface. The space of the face is regarded as a tabula rasa in Deller hon Dainy, in which the three heads signify a space where the paths of life, as proposed by the framework of the world, has been emptied out, and a space which is waiting to be filled with unpredictable subjective energy. This is also demonstrated in the fact that his early works simultaneously take both forms of drawing and sculpture, while occupying a point of exchange where they infuse into each other. In I Love You, the space of the face renders meaningless the differentiation between the inside and outside, flat and 3-dimensional, and drawing and sculpture. Like a zero ground, his face is a site where the layers of norms are neutralized and the phantasmagoria of unfamiliar experiences are illuminated.
In Operator, courses of thin quivering forces flow out of the face. The three heads all come from the same cast; however, this becomes the solid tripod which becomes entangled in an energy of chaos, and the core which holds the lines that spurt out like jets of liquid. Therefore, what Kim fulfills on the space of the face, from which the face has been wiped off, is the structure of rich dynamics. In Assembly, sharp and heavy dark mass breaks and pierces out through the head. Such rejection of the encoded framework of cognition is reduced into the dark skin of the beak or weapon-like form, and the times of the traces that remain on it. Then in Heavy Light is Light, the head becomes a gold body in which the processes of the bulky texture and force have been condensed. The signifiers of the movement, formed through the direct contact between the medium and the body of the artist without any mediator, are charged with a sense of transparency that vibrates the illusion of the head.
Transparency
The transparency in Kim’s work transforms the syntactic concept of sculpture into the concept of time and movement. Among his works, such interest in ‘time’ is strongly evident in his 2007 solo exhibition Move in Earnest. The works, which disrupt the framework of the clock and approach the abstractness of time through pendulum movement, question the invisible regulations that confine us. However, this was a methodology selected to approach such rules when a concrete basis which binds down and oppresses the world is unknown. Kim mocks the principles of time, then designs a completely different time.
In Unassembled Clock, which was shown in Kim’s solo exhibition Eliminate Points, Lines and Planes in 2014, there is no such thing as repetitive time that revolves on a 2-dimensinal plane. Without a systematic measurement and vanished points of beginning and end in number, this cock proposes an infinitely variable time. Although we can never be in the same spacetime for even at least a moment, we sculpt the world into a system of tentatively reasonable system without actually even realizing the truth of time and space. Kim’s time is a destruction of this rational space-time, as well as a wild measurement of things that he felt were time. Furthermore, the exhibition Eliminate Points, Lines and Planes itself is like an alteration of one massive time. This exhibition deviates from the mathematical world of the points, lines and planes, and leads to the horizon of time like a burial mound in eternity. The time here does not signify a conventional notion of layering events and units of specific moments. It’s about a disassembled time beyond a particular dimension like an ‘unassembled clock’. The time here exists in an incomplete state like the hand that has become a ‘flash’, and as transparency that can never be completely filled up.
Such time, impossible to be divided, assembles all movements into a moment, while at the same time, unravelling the moment into modules of countless senses of the body. As illustrated in the paradox between ‘turbulent’ and ‘o’clock’, the title Turbulent O’clock is a type of ‘mouvement’ which simultaneously projects both the moment of movement and perpetuation. Kim said that “Stillness deepens turbulence into a surprising direction, and order functions as a source of explosion at the contact point of turbulence. While this is actually a natural phenomenon, the logic of those who try to make them immobile causes it to be perceived as something supernatural.”[1] The process of such intense actions is a concretization of the turbulence of the transparent forces which cannot be captured through the visible eye without the narrative about the physical movement. Ultimately, this comprehensive yet fragmentary movement becomes a possibility within Kim’s proposed time.
In Unassembled Clock, which was shown in Kim’s solo exhibition Eliminate Points, Lines and Planes in 2014, there is no such thing as repetitive time that revolves on a 2-dimensinal plane. Without a systematic measurement and vanished points of beginning and end in number, this cock proposes an infinitely variable time. Although we can never be in the same spacetime for even at least a moment, we sculpt the world into a system of tentatively reasonable system without actually even realizing the truth of time and space. Kim’s time is a destruction of this rational space-time, as well as a wild measurement of things that he felt were time. Furthermore, the exhibition Eliminate Points, Lines and Planes itself is like an alteration of one massive time. This exhibition deviates from the mathematical world of the points, lines and planes, and leads to the horizon of time like a burial mound in eternity. The time here does not signify a conventional notion of layering events and units of specific moments. It’s about a disassembled time beyond a particular dimension like an ‘unassembled clock’. The time here exists in an incomplete state like the hand that has become a ‘flash’, and as transparency that can never be completely filled up.
Such time, impossible to be divided, assembles all movements into a moment, while at the same time, unravelling the moment into modules of countless senses of the body. As illustrated in the paradox between ‘turbulent’ and ‘o’clock’, the title Turbulent O’clock is a type of ‘mouvement’ which simultaneously projects both the moment of movement and perpetuation. Kim said that “Stillness deepens turbulence into a surprising direction, and order functions as a source of explosion at the contact point of turbulence. While this is actually a natural phenomenon, the logic of those who try to make them immobile causes it to be perceived as something supernatural.”[1] The process of such intense actions is a concretization of the turbulence of the transparent forces which cannot be captured through the visible eye without the narrative about the physical movement. Ultimately, this comprehensive yet fragmentary movement becomes a possibility within Kim’s proposed time.
Space of the Body
The body never exists as a whole in Kim’s work. This is because the bodies in his work are not the bodies of others, but that of the artist himself, seen through his own eyes. Kim’s own body cannot be experienced as a complete whole due to the lack, as a result of sight, and the body floats as an ever-changing organism in between the tension and movement of the senses. For example, the severed body parts in Disco of the Right Angle demonstrates a state of cognitive transition which scatters and focuses again when engaged in certain activities. His body is a channel of the senses through which the body feels, while at the same time, it relates to its own limitations and inabilities to recognize itself as a whole.
However, this is different from the fatalism of desires such as the fragmentation or slipping of the subject. Rather, Kim’s body is a type of gigantic site on which the incompleteness of consciousness is even further disassembled, categorized, deepened and integrated into a completely different state. Kim continues his ceaseless doubting and skepticism on the absurdities of the thought structure that tries to arrive at the conclusion that there is no method to explain the ‘essence’. Such attitude drives the exploration of the fundamental uneasiness about the conventional way of thinking that is defined through the meaning of the text of the body. It also seeks the structure of more abundant and emancipated expression.
In Gendarloake and Pin Hue, the seemingly classical-looking body sculptures mutate by fusing radically with the essence of conventional abstraction. Such mutated state functions as a site which renders the concept of heteromorphism itself meaningless, rather than supporting the smooth coexistence of heterogenous forms. Rather, Kim’s body is charged with currents of life, through the integration of the invisible transparent tension, and the liberation of the tactile sense revealed on the surface of the body. This is because his body dejects the historical look of sculpture, and fully projects the layers of experiences that are endlessly captured and renewed. And this is related to the fact that Kim tries to arrive at a form that coincides with the act of the artist in real time, using preliminary silhouette or urethane foam to narrow the gap between planning and execution. The tactile sensation over the body is a dialectical process which takes place along with the force of time. In other words, the artist’s movement, documented by the tactility of the surface and the embodiment of a fleeting moment in a movement, frequently intersect over the body, ensuring existence and time.
In Light, a sharp pendulum hangs over a lying limbless torso. Having finished oscillating, the end of the pointy pendulum evokes a sense of peril as if it could fall on the chest of the torso that lies below it. Charged with the tension of punishments, this work may be read as a metaphor of death at a glance. On the other hand, however, the soft floor, sunken down with the weight of this anxious body, demonstrates a strange state of rest. This may be our very own state that we see if we could turn our heads around and see our own body through one’s own eyes. What we come to confront in Kim’s work is experimentation of certain possibilities of life that cannot be approached in logical ways. They are moments of exquisite awareness we suddenly come to, when we close our eyes and walk an unfamiliar path.
However, this is different from the fatalism of desires such as the fragmentation or slipping of the subject. Rather, Kim’s body is a type of gigantic site on which the incompleteness of consciousness is even further disassembled, categorized, deepened and integrated into a completely different state. Kim continues his ceaseless doubting and skepticism on the absurdities of the thought structure that tries to arrive at the conclusion that there is no method to explain the ‘essence’. Such attitude drives the exploration of the fundamental uneasiness about the conventional way of thinking that is defined through the meaning of the text of the body. It also seeks the structure of more abundant and emancipated expression.
In Gendarloake and Pin Hue, the seemingly classical-looking body sculptures mutate by fusing radically with the essence of conventional abstraction. Such mutated state functions as a site which renders the concept of heteromorphism itself meaningless, rather than supporting the smooth coexistence of heterogenous forms. Rather, Kim’s body is charged with currents of life, through the integration of the invisible transparent tension, and the liberation of the tactile sense revealed on the surface of the body. This is because his body dejects the historical look of sculpture, and fully projects the layers of experiences that are endlessly captured and renewed. And this is related to the fact that Kim tries to arrive at a form that coincides with the act of the artist in real time, using preliminary silhouette or urethane foam to narrow the gap between planning and execution. The tactile sensation over the body is a dialectical process which takes place along with the force of time. In other words, the artist’s movement, documented by the tactility of the surface and the embodiment of a fleeting moment in a movement, frequently intersect over the body, ensuring existence and time.
In Light, a sharp pendulum hangs over a lying limbless torso. Having finished oscillating, the end of the pointy pendulum evokes a sense of peril as if it could fall on the chest of the torso that lies below it. Charged with the tension of punishments, this work may be read as a metaphor of death at a glance. On the other hand, however, the soft floor, sunken down with the weight of this anxious body, demonstrates a strange state of rest. This may be our very own state that we see if we could turn our heads around and see our own body through one’s own eyes. What we come to confront in Kim’s work is experimentation of certain possibilities of life that cannot be approached in logical ways. They are moments of exquisite awareness we suddenly come to, when we close our eyes and walk an unfamiliar path.
[1] Turbulent O'clock, Inbai Kim, Arario Gallery, 2011.
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