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DAYTIME SLEEPWALKING JIHEE KIM THE CRYPT GALLERY, LONDON 31 JUL 2013 - 6 AUG 2013

지희킴/JIHEE KIM DATE: 31JULY – 4 AUGUST 2013 (THU – SUN 11AM – 6PM) PREVIEW 31 JULY 2013 (6 – 9PM) The Crypt Gallery St Pancras Church, Euston Road, London NW1 2BA Curated by Alpha Art Association Curatorial team Curator_Amy Gahyun Lee 이가현 Creative Manager_junghwan James Ahn 안정환 Director_Yovi Jisun Song 송지선 This catalogue is published by Alpha Art Association 2014 Copyright @ Jihee Kim 2013

‘Stalker’ series installation view, at The Crypt Gallery, London, 2013

DAYTIME SLEEPWALING

Amy Gahyun Lee_Curator_Alpha Art Association In her first solo exhibition in the UK, Daytime Sleepwalking at the Crypt Gallery (Co-sponsored by Alpha Art Association), Jihee kim, London and Seoul based Korean artist desired to re-illuminate her intimate engagement with the notion of introspection, which has always given an impetus to her creative activities. Kim’s were based on her selfreflection and exploration of the artist’s primary inspiration on the theme of female identity. However, this time Kim developed her craft further in more sophisticated and vibrant way of presenting. Under the conceptual exhibition title, Daytime Sleepwalking, Kim encouraged the use of the gallery as her private space to make no bones about her secretive desire and eager for the unattainablity. The extraordinary atmosphere of the Crypt Gallery, which was used for coffin burials as a part of St Pancras Parish Church in the past, contributed towards maximizing artist’s intention. Therefore, as soon as the audience opened the heavy door of the gallery, they were directly introduced into the space, which was transformed into the artist’s own personal archive. By encountering with the audience simultaneously through the exhibition, Kim’s personal inspiration on female identity, more like a story of herself, made its headway toward the boundary of the public. In other words, the artist acted here as a sleepwalker, who wandered around the street in a state of unconsciousness, but during the daytime, surrounded by the crowd enjoying observing to her clandestinely. The exhibition composed of two book based installations (Sleepless Nights & Impossible Anxiety), and two drawing featured paper works (Stalker & Show Me Your Love), which were newly made in 2013. Particularly, it is worth taking a notice on Kim’s first engagement with the new medium; books. The artist moved away from her previous use of papers, which is a traditional medium in art. In contrast to its conventional defining as the read-write medium, books here had new meaning as the visual art work by Kim’s artistic creation. In the two series of Sleepless Nights and Impossible Anxiety, Kim brings abandoned English books to her new creative medium. Both series stands on her emotional detachment from English language and culture. Especially in Sleepless Nights, she transforms obscure and meaningless English books into her private diaries by simply putting personally engaged images inside.

In the same context of Kim’s use of the public space as her own, it could be also interpreted that from the moment of being selected by the artist, these books lost their public use value, and newly acquired the private value as the artist’s own properties in the sense of transformation. However, ultimately by showing those personalized books again to the public, visually by the form of the exhibition, it seemed that she opened her personal library to her spectators and shared her covert feelings and thoughts with them intimately in terms of the interactional communication.

The images Kim depicted (sometimes, sewed and also painted) on the books were poetic, and symbolic, yet at the same time, they were ironically sexual and outspoken. Two different desires, which humans generally has, desire to conceal and disclose twilight appetite, were intermingled concurrently in Sleepless Night. Furthermore, it got developed to the state of resistance against social conservative request on woman to be virtuous. In that sense, the artist challenged to reveal such a taboo subject on the surface and by her trying to have a secret chat with audience, she intensified the feeling of tension. Constantly, under the theme of ‘Womanizing’, Kim’s another book series, titled Impossible Anxiety, presented artist’s ambivalent attitude toward contemporary standard of beauty, generally established by mass-medias with commercial purposes. It was characterized by pop up images of groups of female paper dolls on the books. Mostly theses are images of western women, sheared off from fashion magazines and websites on the Internet. Mainly, it implied Kim’s skepticism on the present circumstance of woman’s pursuit on the standard of beauty, established by male-centered consumerism. In addition, she also critically looked at Asian women’s indiscreet desire for westernized beauty in the way of losing their own natural standard of beauty. By showing a group of paper dolls and their lifeless and splintery characteristics, she eventually pointed out how meaningless and futile it was to pursue blindly this unified imaging standard of beauty. However, there was a frank, but incredulous confession of the artist behind the matter to admitting that the artist is also one of the women, who were exposed in this kind of situation and longed for that beauty.

'Impossible Anxiety' installation view

â€˜Stalkerâ€™ series installation view

installation view

TALK EVENT: The Bluest Eyes, [Thinking of You, Beautiful] Vuvue: Korean Cultural Centre, UK Date: Friday 2 August, 2013 , 6pm Artist Jihee Kim in conversation with JW Stella (an independent curator and a director of JW STELLA Arts Collectives) & Sylvia Lahav (an Associate Lecturer at ICCE in Goldsmiths College, University of London) about the prominent theme of female identity reflected on her art works. Jihee Kim had an invaluable experience, sharing her primary idea about ‘female identity’. Not only with two art specialists, but prominently with the public through having conversations. She candidly revealed that her initial inspiration to create art works was based on her personal considerations, and tried to examine them in social and cultural contexts. Sylvia Lahav and J.W. Stella on the panel were extremely enthusiastic and analyzed Kim’s art world from various perspectives. They focused more on Kim’s unique way of depicting a collective, and saw female images in Kim’s work as a representative of contemporary woman, also an alter ego of herself. Indeed, they expected her to reach her full potential in the future. Inevitably, the public had a significant role at the talk. They took an active part in conversations, particularly in the Q&A session and had sincere discussions with Kim. For her, it was a memorable moment and also an opportunity to organize her own definition of beauty, which has always been a long standing question in her artistic journey. Amy Gahyun Lee

Artist CV Jihee Kim

EDUCATION

Solo Shows

2011- 2013 MFA Fine Art, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

2014 Impossible Anxiety, Cue B gallery, London, UK, Curated by Franco La Russa (upcoming)

2012 Sotheby's Institute of Art Summer Study Art and Its Markets course, London, UK

2013 Daytime Sleepwalking, The Crypt Gallery, London, UK, Organized by Alpha Art Association

2006- 2008 MFA Dept of Painting, College of Fine Art, Dong-Guk University,Seoul, South Korea

2009 Sleepless Night, Yoo Art Space, Seoul, South Korea

2002 - 2006 BFA Dept of Painting, College of Fine Art, Dong-Guk University,Seoul, South Korea

2007 Finding my other self, Jinâ€?heung Art Hall, Seoul, South Korea

Awards and Residency Programs

Selected Group Shows

2014-2015 Gyeonggi Creation Center, Seoul, South Korea

2013 Flow District, Media facade, Seoul, Korea

2013 SOMA DRAWING CENTER Archive artist, Soma Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea

Degree Show, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

2013 Goldsmiths, University of London, Wardens Purchase Prize Winner

2012 Off the s{h}elf , Stockwell Studios, London, UK

2009-2010 Nanji Art Studio 4th Residency Artist ,Seoul Museum of art, Seoul,South Korea

Interim Show, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

2009 Artist Fellowship, Seoul Culture Foundation for Arts and Culture, Seoul, South Korea

Works on paper, GX gallery, London, UK

2009 The National Art Studio Program in Goyang, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Goyang, South Korea

2011 The Exhibition of Female Artists, Jeju Art Museum, Jeju, South Korea

2007- 2008 Kumho Art Studio, Kumho Museum of Art, Icheon, South Korea 2008 Songeun Art Prize, Songeun Arts and Cultural Foundation, Seoul, South Korea

http://www.jiheekim.co.uk/ Public Collections 2013 Goldsmiths, University of London, UK 2011 Art Bank, National Museum of Contemporary Art ,Kwacheon, South Korea 2010 Seoul Museum of Art, Soeul, South Korea 2009 Jeju Art Museum, Jeju, South Korea 2008 Hana Bank, Seoul, South Korea

Alpha Art Association is a projectbased group which consists of art enthusiasts. Our aim is to share innovative ideas and to organize and present a series of artistic events in collaboration with creative people so that we could provide a bridge between people, culture and knowledge.www.10aaa.co.uk Alpha Art Association admin@10aaa.co.uk Curator_ Amy Gahyun Lee Creative Manager_ Jungwhan James Ahn Project Manager_ Suyun Yang Curator(London)_ Silvia Yun0Ji Lee Creative Strategist (R&D) _YoungJune Lee Creative Director_ Dani Daeun Kim Director_ Yovi Jisun Song   Art Director_Kiwoun Shin

With Special Thanks Photos Chuck Bae & Junyong Cho Exhibition post card designed Dongwon Joo Artist panels JW Stella and Sylvia Lahav Artist Talk interpreter Locco Support for the installation by Jinwook Moon Hee Jin Cho, Hyereong Shin, Sanghee Kim and Luke Lee