It was nearly four years ago when I first learned about Kim Inbai's practice, and since then, I have been following his work continuously. The primarily reasons for becoming enamored to his works were perhaps the artist’s series of probes for the original state of humanity through the dimensionality and texture of his sculptures, as well as his brilliant thought processes derived from the seemingly insurmountable confusions, ambiguities and contradictions in these questions, encapsulated in the artist’s ability to translate them into visual language. In his sculptures, Kim continues to explore the notions of movement, rhythm, time and space. He questions "visual perception" and has given these notions infinite deliberations. However, once I've done in-depth research on Kim Inbai's creative background and thought processes, I've also grasped the artist’s resolute scientific spirit, which does not only challenge one’s own habits of thinking, but also content with the inherent limitations of the human species.



As suggested by the title of the exhibition, “Child”, Kim Inbai adopts the role of a pre-school child in throwing out a series of questions about the roots of the matter that ultimately will give those who have accustomed to the things before their eyes severe headaches. I am also one of those people when staring into his works and begin to wonder whether I am the "adult" who should visit the mental ward. As I am writing this text, I begin to realize that, returning to the "mind” of the child and answering questions (while keeping a skeptical attitude towards providing answers) while inserting and deriving more questions may be a backward process, or a kind of “neotenic revolution[1]”, that bewilders the conventional in the attempt to return to the source where “conscience” first erupted.  



Backside consists of two parts: sculpture and drawing. Kim Inbai chose the silhouette lines on the back of the human figure, and made it into a sculpture to stand in the space, while the making of the drawing involves drawing the contour of a human body at the center of the plywood. Cutting along this line, and press half of the plywood on the paper, he then traced the line along the edge, until half of the paper is fully filled. Removing this piece of plywood, and placing the other half onto the paper, he then used the same method to trace its edge repetitively until the entire paper is filled. Seen from a distance, at the center of the paper, a perforated line is made visible, while the two surfaces filled with the artist’s drawing stand on both sides. This art-making process seems somewhat unintelligent and gauche, but it reminds me of how to draw the human figure as I have done in my childhood: a circle represents the head and the rest of the body is represented by five straight lines, which include the four limbs and the corpse. It doesn’t allow people to distinguish the front or back of the body. This is the fastest way of painting a person. I had to ask, when had we began to conceive humans as such (which also expands to our notions of other objects), and use this type of motif to represent them? Are the lines we perceive actually the true existence of any object? Or is it an artificial invention?  Although this “line” may be taken as a base, why wouldn’t drawing the Back as a surface avert the crevasse?  The sculpture of the human contour representing the side of the figure that delineates the presence of an individual, while the empty space around this sculptural contour is seemingly the extension of the individual, an abstract existence of man, then what is the human existence in a physical space or society at large?  Is it the traces left as lines, or surfaces?  Or does it depend on the perspective of the viewer?  How large the crevasses between these lines and the conjured surfaces actually are?



Faced with The Reproduction of Two Carvings and Single Digit, I was at a loss in the same way as when I first read many of the Zen phrases. As it's widely known, many Zen phrases aim to undermine people’s obsession with linguistic logic, for which, they are constructed with superficial contradiction, misinterpretation, and unimaginable circumstances, so people are befuddled with their meanings, so they need to turn their backs to resort to the possibility of common knowledge, reason, and logic. Take the example of the famous verse, “If you call [this] a bamboo staff then this is ‘attachment,’ if you do not call this a bamboo staff than this is ‘turning against;’ what would you call it?”[2], which is to mean, the Zen master raises the bamboo staff and asked, "If you call it a bamboo staff then you'd fall into the convention if you don't call it that, you'd be defying common sense, then how would you call it?” The two similar head sculptures and the two symmetrical feet sculptures The Reproduction of Two Carvings are paired into two sets. In our common sense, two feet can make into a pair, but not with the two heads. When you see one head on a leg, and the other on another, do you have the urge to take a head away and put the legs together? Isn't this logical grouping a kind of crevasse? Be it regrouping or deconstruction, aren't these traps in either of these thought processes? Single Digit, on the other hand, questions our rudimentary thinking on calculation with our common sense. A set of cones hangs in the air pointing downward, and directly under them, there are two minuscule human feet. Opposite to these, hangs a cranium-like sculpture. Either the sculpture of foot or head, these fragmented pieces underscore the image of the human body, but how many “people” are actually here?  Does the head represent a person who faces one or two people?  Or does the set represent a person?  Or two? Furthermore, how do we count them? What are the frameworks and standards we should adopt? Whose perspective do we start with? Am I the counter, or do I account for the total?  There is a common phenomenon in everyday life, at least I often encounter these confusions, for example, when I am in a room with a group of people, and when someone asks me, how many people are in the room, I would often pause unconsciously, do I include myself in my answer or not?



With a series of archaeological evidence, psychological and linguistic studies, scholars discovered human beings have an inherent sense for numbers, who can only accurately distinguish quantities less than 4, any amount greater than 3 would only be an uncertain estimate. Although under the great pressure for survival, humans use fingers to understand quantity. Humans invented numbers, which ushered an agricultural revolution and the written language.[3] Can we ask the hypothetical question: is it at the moment when humans looked at their hands and invented numbers, they have separated themselves from the others (world)? If the ability to count comes from the tremendous pressure for humans to survive, then it's not necessary to determine whether this ability counts as progress or regression, or is it a regression in the human acclimatizing for survival? Will the invention of numbers under such circumstances and the formation of language and civilization also be confined by certain frameworks of learning?  … Perhaps these are the questions the ignorant would utter, or they may also be unhinged imaginations, however, would all of these questions and their possible answers project all facets of the facts? The truth we ascribe to may entail certain bias from the simplification of things. Here, simplification does not necessarily refer to reduction, but the loss of certain frameworks for the fact, this may be the inherent limitation in the construct of humanity. Even though human beings may now take advantage of the assistance of new technology and new tools to overcome these limitations. Yet, as technology progresses, the model used to study the mind will also have to change. Hence, what is truly necessary is to embrace the spirit of skepticism, thereby to reach for the truth. For me, stepping into the site of Kim Inbai's practice has not necessarily been a comfortable experience. His sculptures are like the wisdom he's thrown into the physical space, that makes you startled, confused and skeptical, but it is this kind of wrestling between the work of art and the viewer that will nurture new vitality!