HaYoung Kim | Eat All You Can
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Transcript of HaYoung Kim | Eat All You Can
1 / Hoxton Art Gallery
HOXTON ART GALLERY
64 Charlotte RoadLondonEC2A 3PE
T +44 (0)2077396852E [email protected]
HAYOUNG KIM - EAT ALL YOU CAN
31st August - 4th October 2012
CURATED BY DIRECTOR OF THE JERWOOD FOUNDATION LARA WARDLE
2 / Hoxton Art Gallery
31st August - 4th October 2012
CURATED BY LARA WARDLE, DIRECTOR OF THE JERWOOD FOUNDATION
HAYOUNG KIM - EAT ALL YOU CAN
Hoxton Art Gallery are pleased to announce HaYoung Kim’s first solo exhibition in east Lon-
don, 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 art-
ist 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 mat-
ter 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 re-
sponsible 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 Direc-
tors.
3 / Hoxton Art Gallery
HAYOUNG KIM
‘Like the work of Japanese Pop artists such as Takashi Muraka-
mi and Yoshitomo Nara, Kim’s pieces take inspiration from man-
ga comic books and animations. But the characters and land-
scapes of these cartoon sources are warped almost beyond
recognition in her latest acrylics, which are applied to unusu-
al 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 un-
mentionable 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
4 / Hoxton Art Gallery
HAYOUNG KIM
b. 1983, South Korea Lives and works in London
EDUCATION
2010 Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art, Royal Academy2007 BFA Painting, Hongik University, Seoul, Korea
AWARDS & RESIDENCIES
2011 The Dunover de Segonzac Award Vytlacil AIR program in New York2010 Glenfiddich artists in residence Jerwood Prize, Royal Academy Schools, Major Prize Soloman J Soloman2009 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 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, London2011 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, London2010 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 2009 Mindscape of the 21st Century, AndrewJamesArt, B-TAP, Shanghai RA School Show, The Dover Arts Club Exhibition, London2006 Zagreb 19:00 – Seoul 02:00 Simultaneous Exhibition between Korea and Republic of Croatia, Gallery COTT, Seoul, Korea2005 International Exchange Exhibition between Korea, Japan, U.S.A and China, Museum of contempo rary Art, Osaka University of Arts, Osaka, Japan
24 / Hoxton Art Gallery
Understood Passivity, 2012
Acrylic on drafting film and transparency36 x 44 cm
32 / Hoxton Art Gallery
Operation Table, 2012
Acrylic on drafting film, projection/video*152 x 152 cm
*In collaboration with David López Retamero
48 / Hoxton Art Gallery
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 op-
portunities. 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 experi-
ence outside of the academy allowed me to be an individual and to find my own way to com-
municate 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 com-
pletely different like a restaurant or a shop.
South Korea is a country which underwent rapid post-war development. The change is al-
most 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-
49 / Hoxton Art Gallery
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 unmatch-
able 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 una-
bashedly 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-res-
olution 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 appeal-
ing image I take a picture of it and make a sketch of it in my drawing book, and then I trans-
50 / Hoxton Art Gallery
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
51 / Hoxton Art Gallery
sketch that is normally invisible and hidden under subsequent layers of paint, is made imme-
diately 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 be-
hind 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 con-
sume? 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 emoti-
cons from the internet onto plates so that they seem like food that we can eat. My interest
52 / Hoxton Art Gallery
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.