James Fuentes Online
Contact

To inquire about an artwork: please call +1 (212) 577-1201 or email james@jamesfuentes.com or kl@jamesfuentes.com.

Seob Kim
October 1–November 1, 2022

In Seob Kim's works, details accelerate and turn upside down. Still, Kim develops a drawing stroke that takes time to deploy itself on the paper surface, forming a sensitivity to the subject he is depicting. The issue here is not about the High and Low but how to make complexity cohabit with the sensitive; how to move from the Bigger Picture to the specific; how to widen perception by accumulating the details of a thought process…

In this series of new watercolors by Kim we notice the recurring presence of Bruce Nauman's The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths within a fantasized landscape. Reenacting this particular piece in varied urban environments, Kim takes Nauman's original attempt at a statement and transforms it into a subliminal message; a disruptive element that hacks public space and derives its energy source from telegraph poles. Kim phantasmagorically misplaces a cultural ornament from its dedicated institutional environment to reflect back on its sociological relevance and effect. The spiraling design and satyrical spin of Nauman's piece could itself illustrate how Kim juxtaposes pop imagery and trends, political and social issues, and references to art history to build these unsettling compositions that seem strangely familiar. It’s a strategy both disruptive and attractive at the same time.

In this exhibition we also encounter eight pieces from Kim’s ongoing People series using the stratagem of the "Portrait Chinois" literary game to depict his relatives, friends, or people briefly met. Here the goal is to detect certain aspects of an individual personality by selecting an anecdotal element that correlates to reveal their tastes or preferences by (for example: “If they were an animal, they’d be a…”). Articulated simply by the subject's first name followed by a parenthetical “People,” the titles in this series paradoxically maintain a certain anonymity. The viewer is left to interpret the possibility of a personality and scenario deployed to define it. Placed together, various portraits selected from Kim’s People series configure a mental landscape and a social environment, revealing the sinuous interactions between generations, ethnicities, and social classes that compose it.

Seob Kim is a Swiss and French artist born in 1974 in Seoul, Korea. He has presented solo exhibitions at MAMCO, Geneva; Swiss Institute (Istituto Svizzero), Milan; Truth and Consequences, Geneva; and Karma International, Zurich. He has participated in group exhibitions at Praz Delavallade, Paris; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Kunsthaus Glarus; and the Louisiana Museum, Copenhagen. He studied at Haute Ecole d'art et de design de Genève (HEAD) and has received the Swiss Prix Federal d’Art numerous times. Kim lives and works in Geneva.

Organized by Paul-Aymar Mourgue D'Algue.

Works
Seob Kim
Neon #12
2022

Ink, gouache, and watercolor on Saunders Waterford paper

19.75 × 27.125 in (50 × 69 cm)
InquireRead More
Seob Kim
Neon #9
2020-2023

Ink and watercolor on Saunders Waterford paper

11.75 × 8.25 in (30 × 21 cm)
InquireRead More
Seob Kim
Neon #15
2020-2023

Ink and watercolor on Arches paper

15.75 × 11.75 in (40 × 30 cm)
InquireRead More
Seob Kim
Neon #8
2020-2023

Ink and watercolor on Saunders Waterford paper

11.75 × 8.25 in (30 × 21 cm)
InquireRead More
Seob Kim
Wormhole / 2001 - 2020, Heroes and Heroines
2020

Ink and watercolor on Saunders Waterford paper

21.25 × 27.125 in (54 × 69 cm)
InquireRead More
Seob Kim
People / Ismaël
2016-2023

Ink, watercolor, and airbrush on Saunders Waterford paper

11.75 × 8.25 in (30 × 21 cm)
InquireRead More
Seob Kim
People / Hugo
2020-2023

Ink, watercolor, and airbrush on Saunders Waterford paper

11.75 × 8.25 in (30 × 21 cm)
InquireRead More
Seob Kim
People / Costanza
2020-2023

Ink, watercolor, and airbrush on Saunders Waterford paper

11.75 × 8.25 in (30 × 21 cm)
InquireRead More
Seob Kim
People / Élisa
2020-2023

Ink, pencil, and airbrush on Saunders Waterford paper

15.75 × 11.75 in (40 × 30 cm)
InquireRead More
Seob Kim
People / Witold
2020-2023

Ink and airbrush on Saunders Waterford paper

11.75 × 8.25 in (30 × 21 cm)
InquireRead More
Seob Kim
People / Inès (made in collaboration with Inès Thomasson)
2020-2023

Ink, pencil, watercolor, and airbrush on Saunders Waterford paper

15.75 × 11.75 in (40 × 30 cm)
InquireRead More
Seob Kim
People / Andrée
2020-2023

Ink, watercolor, and airbrush on Saunders Waterford paper

11.75 × 8.25 in (30 × 21 cm)
InquireRead More
Seob Kim
China strait
2020-2021

Pencil and watercolor on Saunders Waterford paper

26.375 × 20.875 in (67 × 53 cm)
InquireRead More
Seob Kim
People / Élio (made in collaboration with Élio Thomasson)
2020-2023

Ink, watercolor, and airbrush on Saunders Waterford paper

11.75 × 8.25 in (30 × 21 cm)
InquireRead More
Seob Kim
Neon #6
2020-2023

Ink and watercolor on Arches paper

15.75 × 11.75 in (40 × 30 cm)
InquireRead More
Seob Kim
Wormhole / Philip Johnson vision
2020-2021

Ink, gouache, and watercolor on hahnemuhle paper

20.875 × 27.125 in (53 × 69 cm)
InquireRead More