Elemental: Kim Jongku

A DECADE OF COMMISIONS AND ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PROJECTS AT THE SPENCER MUSEUM OF ART, 2005–2015 Edited by Kris Imants Ercums INTRODUCTION | 004 Embedding Artists in the Life of a University Art Museum Saralyn Reece Hardy & Kris Imants Ercums COMMISSIONS | 012 RESIDENCIES | 080 082 | “Tradition is Not Merely a Lexicon”: Up/Down by Wang Tiande Kris Imants Ercums 090 | Stickwork by Patrick Dougherty Stephen H. Goddard 014 | Feeding Lawrence: Work+Workplace: A Project by Earl Iversen and Luke Jordan John Pultz 096 | Elemental: Kim Jongku Kris Imants Ercums 020 | Stop Look Listen: An Installation by Janet Davidson-Hues and Maria Velasco Susan Earle 102 | Out of Frame: Dan Perjovschi Celka Straughn 026 | Pollinators: A Community Mural by Dave Loewenstein Susan Earle 108 | Pow! Jin Shan Strikes Again Kris Imants Ercums 034 | A Greenland Glacier: The Scale of Climate Change, Photographs by Terry Evans Stephen H. Goddard 114 | The Spectacle is Everywhere: A Training Camp for Demonstrators by Chen Shaoxiong Kris Imants Ercums 038 | ;|uoˆvh‹ Ѵ†ŠĹ";1om7b=;uof;1|0‹0Ѵo||oÖrvbѴom-m7†|;-;m;ѴѴb Stephen H. Goddard 042 | Talking Trees: An Installation by Karen McCoy and Robert Carl Susan Earle 048 | Visitation: A One-Day Performance by Ernesto Pujol Susan Earle 056 | Art, Healthcare, and Communities: The DropIN/PopUP Waiting Room Project Celka Straughn 062 | An Errant Line: Ann Hamilton / Cynthia Schira Susan Earle 070 | Ode to Sprout II: An Installation by Ke-Sook Lee Kris Imants Ercums 074 | b||Ѵ;"|u†1|†u;vĹolrovb|bom0‹u‹-mbr--_;bl Amy Duke TABLE OF CONTENTS 124 | Miscommunication as Communication: The Xijing Men Kris Imants Ercums & Raechell Smith 134 | Comanche is Dead: A Project by Diego Teo Kris Imants Ercums & Cassandra Mesick Braun CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES | 142 Compiled by YeGee Kwon IMAGE CREDITS | 164 RESIDENCIES 80 Viewers watch artist Kim Jongku during a performance for his project Mobile Landscape. 81 ELEMENTAL KIM JONGKU RESIDENCY: 02/14/2010–02/28/2010 EXHIBITION: 02/25/2010–06/25/2010 ELECTRONIC ARTS SPACE Kris Imants Ercums Over the course of two weeks, while donning a white lab GSEXEVXMWX/MQ.SRKOY[SVOIHMREKEPPIV]GYQWXYHMSXS create a 13-meter, 9-panel steel powder painting now in the collection of the Spencer Museum (Fig. 1, pgs. 98–99).1 Originally trained as a sculptor, since the late 1990s Kim’s work has been more about the remainder of the sculptural process—namely, steel powder. A recent monograph goes WSJEVEWXSHIWGVMFI/MQEWERƈI\WGYPTXSV?WMGAƉƂEQSRMOIV that penetrates the multivalent process at the heart of his work. For Kim, the act of grinding steel is: "the main hub from which the spokes of different types of interconnected works protrude." He goes on to explain: Fig. 2 | Kim shifts a canvas while working on his steel powder painting. I grind steel, which makes powder, but this powder is used to create calligraphy works, which then make a landscape… 2 The way Kim transforms the solidity of steel, manipulating it with great sensitivity, is fundamentally informed by his approach to the natural world. To create his steel powder paintings, Kim not only grinds steel, but also harnesses elemental forces such as gravity, moisture, and time. After mixing different grades of steel powder with salt in order 97 Fig. 1 | Kim Jongku, Steel Powder Painting, 2010 to accelerate the oxidation process, he applies the concoction to raw, YRKIWWSIHGERZEW[MXLEQSHMƼIHHYWXTER8LIUYMIX[SVOWTEGI [EWƼPPIH[MXLPS[JVIUYIRG]VIZIVFIVEXMSRWSJ/MQQYQFPMRKYRHIV his breath, as if reciting an esoteric mantra, followed by the cascading W[MWLSJƼRIKVERYPIWJEPPMRKXSXLIKEPPIV]ƽSSVEWLIPMJXIHERHPS[IVIH the sections of canvas, harnessing gravity to create the smeared appearance of the work (Fig. 2). 2IEVMRKGSQTPIXMSR/MQHIGPEVIHƈ1]TEMRXMRKWRIIHXSFVIEXLIƉ/MQ often describes the oxidation process as an incarnate force in his steel powder creations. In the past, he had intentionally placed artworks outside in order to experiment with the reactive effects of weather— ƽSEXMRKETEMRXMRKSRXLI0SMVI6MZIVMRERHMRWXEPPMRK[SVOWMR XLII\UYMWMXIIRZMVSRWSJ'LʜXIEYHY+VERH.EVHMR.SMRZMPPI*VERGIMR 2006.3 In keeping with these installations, we moved the nine panels 1_ The exhibition Kim Jongku: Mobile Landscape was made possible by the generosity of the William T. Kemper Foundation, Kansas City. 2_ Merali Shaheen, ed., “Kim Jongku,” in 6IMQEKMRMRK%WME%8LSYWERH=IEVWSJ7ITEVEXMSR (London; Berkeley, CA: Saqi, 2008), 242. 3_ Simply Beautiful Breath of Nature in Korean Contemporary Art (November 7–December 31, 2006), Le Grand Jardin, Joinville, France, organized by art consultant, Laurence Geoffrey. See further Exsculptor (KhyungHyangArt Co.: Seoul, 2013), 112–127 and 132–135. 98 outside to spend the night on the Museum’s loading dock. That night a storm coated the paintings in a thin layer of ice (Fig. 3). After defrosting the panels, Kim resumed work, quietly reciting stream-of-consciousness hangul poetry tinged with melancholy. Steel also represents the industrialized forces that have fueled the economic miracle of Korea. Rising from the ashes of the Korean War Ɓ 7SYXL/SVIEIQIVKIHEWSRISJXLIJSYVWSGEPPIHƈ%WMER Tigers” (the other three being Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan), a moniker these capitalist powerhouses earned for their sustained economic growth and rapid industrialization in the late 20th century. Today, Seoul, a metropolitan area with a population of more than 25 million people, is the product of steel. By embracing discarded residue, Kim consciously constructs works that confront loss and memory. For Kim, steel powder is deeply grounded in personal life experience. He relates a series of incidents as seminal to his transformation. In 1997, shortly after graduating from the Chelsea College of Art and Design, London, three of his iron bar sculptures that had been installed in the outdoor exhibition Sculpture Trail in Lewes were stolen. After returning to his studio, he was confronted with the loss of the pilfered artwork 99 F]XLISRP]VIQRERXƂXLIQIXEPTS[HIVPMXXIVMRKXLIƽSSVSJLMWWXYHMS He recalls, "When I returned to my workshop with much feeling of loss, -XSSORSXMGISJXLIWGEXXIVIHMVSRƼPPMRKWSRXLIƽSSV4 In a moment of VIƽIGXMSRLIGVIEXIHLMWƼVWXQIXEPTS[HIVEVX[SVO The two piles I created, one made up of pure iron fillings and the other of dust, were the materialization of my pure internal labour and external pressures. 5 Once completed, Kim’s large-scale steel powder painting was installed in the Spencer Museum’s gallery where he had been working. Following Kim’s artist talk at the opening of the exhibition, he installed his ongoing work Mobile Landscape in a rare live performance (see pgs. 80–81). Conceptually, Mobile Landscape builds on the aesthetic sensibility of traditional Korean ink-and-brush landscape painting. Kim began by inscribing a large sheet of white photographic paper with a poetic inscription. Then, a closed-circuit camera was strategically positioned SRXLIƽSSVEQSRKXLIWXIIPTS[HIVMRWXEPPEXMSRERHTVSNIGXIHSRXLI wall above the installation. The resulting projection broadcast above the installation transformed the miniscule mounds of steel powder on the white paper into monumental mountains in the transmitted image above. The black-and-white coloration further evoked traditional ink-andbrush landscape painting, yet, the installation inverted the typical scale. 6EXLIVXLERWQEPPLYQERƼKYVIWXLEXSRIMWEGGYWXSQIHXSWIIMRKMR an ink-and-brush painting, glimpses of the shoes of onlookers dwarfed mountains. Kim’s alchemical approach to steel enables him to transform the hard and unyielding character of this building block of the industrialized world into a delicate material capable of crafting inverted kingdoms of mountains and valleys. By conjuring the power of elemental forces of time, gravity, oxidation, and weather, like a wizard Kim transmutes the solidity of steel into a medium of such subtle delicateness that he bends to create images of an idealized natural world and melancholic streams of verse. Fig. 3 | Kim’s canvases covered in ice after an overnight stay outdoors. 4_ Kim Jongku, “Lost Iron Bar Sculpture 1997,” Exsculptor (KhyungHyangArt Co.: Seoul, 2013), 48. 5_ Ibid. 100 101 Copyright © 2017, Spencer Museum of Art, The University of Kansas Funding for this publication was provided by the Marilyn Stokstad Publication Fund. All rights reserved. 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