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HAYOUNG KIM - EAT ALL YOU CAN CURATED BY DIRECTOR OF THE JERWOOD FOUNDATION LARA WARDLE 31st August - 4th October 2012
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HAYOUNG KIM - EAT ALL YOU CAN CURATED BY LARA WARDLE, DIRECTOR OF THE JERWOOD FOUNDATION 31st August - 4th October 2012
Hoxton Art Gallery are pleased to announce HaYoung Kim’s first solo exhibition in east London, curated by Director of the Jerwood Foundation Lara Wardle. Kim is a South Korean artist who graduated from the Royal Academy in 2011 and has already reached critical acclaim in London and internationally winning the major prize with Jerwood in 2010, the Soloman J Soloman Prize and the Vytlacil AIR residency in New York, 2011.
Kim is renowned for her colourful depictions of manga inspired characters and landscapes, painting onto unusual surfaces such as drafting film and polyester. In her practice the artist focusses on the ways human beings consume and relate with technology; her recent work exploring the physiological relationship between individuals and the digital realm. In her solo exhibition Kim has included a series of ‘dish paintings’ which feature meals of organic matter merging with the technological. Offering confused jumbles of flesh, food and emoticons on each of the plates Kim presents us with a glimpse of what our daily physical and virtual ingestion may look like.
Curator Lara Wardle joined the Jerwood Foundation in January 2010, having previously worked as a specialist in 20th Century British Art and Associate Director at Christie’s. Alongside wider responsibilities as Director of the Jerwood Foundation, Lara is solely responsible for the Jerwood Collection of 20th and 21st century art, which is on public view at the new Jerwood Gallery in Hastings. Lara also sits on the Jerwood Gallery Board of Directors.
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HAYOUNG KIM ‘Like the work of Japanese Pop artists such as Takashi Murakami and Yoshitomo Nara, Kim’s pieces take inspiration from manga comic books and animations. But the characters and landscapes of these cartoon sources are warped almost beyond recognition in her latest acrylics, which are applied to unusual surfaces such as film and polyester. Highly colourful, strange organic shapes predominate, swirling in vortexes or other free-form patterns, or sometimes ground together in some unmentionable ectoplasm-like mush. The title of the show ‘Eat All You Can’ conveys something of the superabundance on offer.’ - Sam Phillips, London-based art critic
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HAYOUNG KIM b. 1983, South Korea Lives and works in London EDUCATION 2010 Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art, Royal Academy 2007 BFA Painting, Hongik University, Seoul, Korea AWARDS & RESIDENCIES 2011 2010 2009
The Dunover de Segonzac Award Vytlacil AIR program in New York Glenfiddich artists in residence Jerwood Prize, Royal Academy Schools, Major Prize Soloman J Soloman The Arts Club Prize Excellence in Drawing Award (1st)
SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2012 Eat All You Can, Hoxton Art Gallery, London (Upcoming: 31st Aug – 27th Sep) 2011 Solo Show, 43 Inverness Street Gallery, London GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2012 2011 2010 2009 2006 2005
The Pleasure Principle, Hoxton Art Gallery, London ID Please, An exhibition of contemporary Korean art with the Alpha Art Association, London Map The Korea, The 5th 4482 Exhibition, London Winter Exhibition, Hoxton Art Gallery, London ‘Painting?’, Hoxton Art Gallery, London Tomorrow 2011, Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul Art Centre, Korea Royal Academy Schools Show, London Royal Academy Summer Show, London The Royal Academy Group Show, Galeria of Michael Aalders, St. Tropez, France Artists at Glenfiddich First and Second Exhibition, Dufftown, Scotland 4th International Art Fair ArtDaegu, Daegu, Korea Premiums Royal Academy Interim Exhibition, Sackler Galleries, London RA Show at the Royal Automobile Club, London Mindscape of the 21st Century, AndrewJamesArt, B-TAP, Shanghai RA School Show, The Dover Arts Club Exhibition, London Zagreb 19:00 – Seoul 02:00 Simultaneous Exhibition between Korea and Republic of Croatia, Gallery COTT, Seoul, Korea International Exchange Exhibition between Korea, Japan, U.S.A and China, Museum of contempo rary Art, Osaka University of Arts, Osaka, Japan
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What You Eat Series Acrylic on Polyester 50 x 50 cm each
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What You Eat I, 2012 Acrylic on Polyester 50 x 50 cm
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What You Eat IV, 2012 Acrylic on Polyester 50 x 50 cm
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What You Eat II, 2012 Acrylic on Polyester 50 x 50 cm
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What You Eat III, 2012 Acrylic on Polyester 50 x 50 cm
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WWW, 2012 Acrylic on drafting film 305 x 210 cm
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Public Feelings, 2012 Acrylic on drafting film 152 x 125 cm
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Celebrated Motion, 2012 Acrylic on drafting film and transparency 36 x 44 cm
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Organic Mask, 2012 Acrylic on drafting film and transparency 36 x 44 cm
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Hidden Watch, 2012 Acrylic on drafting film and transparency 36 x 44 cm
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Self Defense Tree, 2012 Acrylic on drafting film and transparency 36 x 44 cm
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Tweeted Feelings, 2012 Acrylic on drafting film and transparency 36 x 44 cm
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Understood Passivity, 2012 Acrylic on drafting film and transparency 36 x 44 cm
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Stem Girls I, 2012 Acrylic on polyester 62 x 83 cm
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Stem Girls II, 2012 Acrylic on polyester 62 x 83 cm
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She has an Electronic Face II, 2012 Acrylic on Polyester 50 x 50 cm
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She has an Electronic Face I, 2012 Acrylic on Polyester 50 x 50 cm
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She has an Electronic Face III, 2012 Acrylic on Polyester 50 x 50 cm
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Operation Table, 2012 Acrylic on drafting film, projection/video* 152 x 152 cm
*In collaboration with David L贸pez Retamero
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God Finger II, 2012 Acrylic on Polyester 50 x 50 cm
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God Finger I, 2012 Acrylic on Polyester 50 x 50 cm
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God Finger III, 2012 Acrylic on Polyester 50 x 50 cm
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Virtualium, 2012 Acrylic on drafting film 302 x 187cm
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Internal Sequence IX, 2012 Acrylic on drafting film 210 x 152 cm
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Handy Blossom, 2012 Acrylic on drafting film 210 x 152 cm
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Bubble Communication, 2012 Acrylic on drafting film 152 x 125 cm
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Cyber Love, 2012 Acrylic on drafting film 152 x 125 cm
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1,084,785 views, 2012 Acrylic on Polyester 50 x 50 cm
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196, 86 likes, 2012 Acrylic on Polyester 50 x 50 cm
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6 dislikes, 2012 Acrylic on Polyester 50 x 50 cm
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A discussion between the Director of The Jerwood Foundation, Lara Wardle, and the artist HaYoung Kim
LW - Thank you for asking me to curate your forthcoming exhibition. It is a pleasure to be able to be involved with your work and follow your career since awarding you the Jerwood Prize in 2010. This is your second solo show since graduating from the Royal Academy Schools last year and I wanted to ask how you feel your work has developed since your previous show. HYK - Thank you for accepting my request to curate my solo show at Hoxton Art Gallery. It has already been very special and encouraging for me to have you as my curator. I am very excited about the character we will give this show together. Since my graduation show in June last year, my interests have broadened and so my practice has broadened too and somehow become more personal. After leaving the Royal Academy, I jumped into various opportunities. I went to New York for a two month residency programme and after that I joined another artist residency programme in Arlington house, Camden, for five months. This experience outside of the academy allowed me to be an individual and to find my own way to communicate with the world. I felt as if I had taken off the royal gown and became the humble me again. Now I am trying to find the best way to expose myself to the outside world and this show will be a great stepping stone for this.
LW - When you mention that your work has in some way become personal, how much do you draw upon your experiences of growing up in South Korea? When I came to your studio, you mentioned that you had visited family again recently. HYK - Yes, I did. I went to Korea last winter for two months to see my parents and close friends. I hadn’t been back to Korea for two and a half years. I was surprised by all the fast changes that had taken place. The places I used to go to had all changed into something completely different like a restaurant or a shop. South Korea is a country which underwent rapid post-war development. The change is almost palpable in Seoul; which has been transformed from a pre-modern-looking town to a large city full of the latest amenities and new buildings. One gets the feeling that the relent-
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less work-ethic that is so visible in Seoul is a reflection of South Korea’s attempt to assert its freedom from the powers of China, Japan and the USA. Yet this drive for independence has created side-effects. In Seoul it is the overwhelming level of information available on every surface that is the most noticeable. Having been living in the UK for the past four years, I could observe my own country from a different perspective over the two months that I was there. What was particularly striking was how, in Seoul, there were so many advertisements for things like plastic surgery and food juxtaposed in the same space. I felt disorientated by the mixture of all these unmatchable things that were all explicitly and fully ready to be consumed. This ‘unmatchable scenery’ for me feels like a contrived inside and outside. The cosmetic surgery advertisements unabashedly depicted natural ‘before’ and artificial ‘after’ photos of girls. It was so bizarre, the girls’ faces looked as if they were made of plastic. And the nearby photos of well-presented food conveyed a similar feeling. I felt light and heavy at the same time. Pretty shiny high-resolution figures drove me towards a sense of futility. I made a number of sketches based upon this experience and transposed them into larger scale works.
LW - It is interesting that you write about ‘the overwhelming level of information available on every surface’ as you often crowd your works with a huge amount of different images and symbols. Is it important to you that the imagery and symbols are deciphered by the viewer or do you prefer your paintings to remain enigmatic? HYK - It is not always a successful endeavour to make the viewer understand what you are thinking but I would like to believe that my work resonates with people, with a certain energy and feelings. When I was a kid, I was so into Japanese and American animation and comic books. After reading manga comics and watching numerous animations, their language and style became unimportant to me. They merged in my mind into something more abstract, the details becoming cut away and only the essential elements remaining and coming across like ‘codes’. This idea is linked to the reason why I paint with a simple graphic style. The images that I collect and use for my paintings are from my daily experiences. When I find an appealing image I take a picture of it and make a sketch of it in my drawing book, and then I trans-
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fer it to a bigger surface. The original image loses its initial information and figure. In this process of distilling, which I think is similar to abstraction, I try to trim down the details of the images and leave the essence of them there so that the viewer is free from the obligation of understanding. With excessive repetition images become like signs that have no deeper meaning or reference beyond themselves. Baudrillard’s concept of the simulacrum is that which ‘bears no relation to any reality whatsoever.’ Within our fast changing capitalist society, we consume images without trying to associate them with any deeper meaning. Applying the Marxist critique of capitalist ‘commodity fetishism’, we can say that we no longer think about the human-related labour and history of a product but rather consume things that are simply objectified.
LW - I find your work very appealing and feel that part of this appeal for me comes from the references to animation. It has a joyful, brightly coloured side but there’s always something lurking underneath as you find in many animations and comics. Does it matter to you how the viewer perceives the balance between the seriousness and light heartedness in your work? HYK - I use the language of cartoon as a means of drawing the viewer into the picture. My work has a friendly appeal, but also hides a dark story underneath. The key element with creating artworks, for me, is the paradox between tough reality and humour. I choose to express the modern human condition and its relationship with technology and human biology in a bright, cartoonish and humorous way. I do this because I believe this way of storytelling emphasizes what may lie behind the surface. The viewer can choose whether to look deeper into the surreal and dark side of the work or stand back and appreciate the bright side.
LW - I also wanted to ask you about your technique and why you use different layers in your works, including layers of acetate. HYK - The process of painting on drafting film is strongly related to the subject matter of my practice. I paint on the matt side of the drafting film with acrylic and glass paint and once I finish this I turn it over so that the viewer can only see its glossy opposite side. The result is a complete reversal of the traditional mode of making and viewing a painting. The very first
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sketch that is normally invisible and hidden under subsequent layers of paint, is made immediately visible, while the finishing touches are known only to me, the artist, but are concealed from the viewer behind the earlier furtive strokes. All of the strokes are impossible to change or fix once they are done. In this way, one can relate this process directly to the separation between the conscious and the unconscious mind. The gloss or ‘finishing touches’ that we place on our experiences, in order to construct our autobiographical selves, are most visible to us but hidden from others. All the while, others can most directly perceive our raw actions and guess their unconscious motivations without a distorting narcissistic lens. The aim of these paintings is to achieve that feeling of complete exposure and vulnerability. The material I use is consistent with the idea of virtual reality as a reflection of reality upon a computer screen. Zizek has argued that the (post)modern situation under the influence of science and virtual reality turns the whole of reality into something which ‘exists only on a screen’, a depthless surface. I refer to the drafting film works as ‘screen paintings’, a term which attempts to capture the effect that is produced in the reversing of the original images. When approaching the work the viewer discovers that the paint is inaccessible, hidden behind a glossy screen, yet, paradoxically, the process is immediately tangible by virtue of the first stroke being seen first. In this sense, the drafting film works to accentuate the fact that, despite our attempts to screen it, there is a traumatic Real we can’t suppress.
LW - Finally, I wanted to ask about the title of your new show ‘Eat All You Can’. Firstly, did you choose this title? And also, presumably this is a reference to our relentless desire to consume? I wonder whether you see consumerism as a necessity of modern living or something we should be curbing our enthusiasm towards. HYK - The reason for the title came from passing a Chinese buffet near where I live in Clapham Junction. I saw a sign which said ‘Eat All You Can’ not ‘All You Can Eat’ outside the restaurant. I thought this was very funny as it sounded like a military order and that we have no chance but must eat all we can. I thought this was a perfect title for the show. I have been making a ‘dish painting’ series, putting a mixture of icons, signs and emoticons from the internet onto plates so that they seem like food that we can eat. My interest
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in internet identity is linked to how digital images affect our body. The idea of ingesting the information and images we see in daily life and then digesting them so that they become part of our body. At first glance, my dish paintings seem to just contain fragmented signs and symbols that pose no potential harm to us, inert epiphenomena. However, these images are the source of various identifications and desires, they contribute to teaching us who we want to be and how we want to consume; in them, we are reflected. In the works, this digital food appears vulnerable and passively displayed, yet by making the association with food, I aim to show how after we consume them they become a part of us.
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