Atelier Hermès presents Minae Kim’s solo exhibition 《GIROGI》 as its first exhibition of 2018, running from March 16 (Friday) to May 13 (Sunday). This exhibition showcases new works composed of reliefs, sound, and moving lights.

Minae Kim has long been interested in revealing the multilayered frameworks or systems that individuals experience and perceive—ranging from the invisible boundaries between oneself and their surroundings to conventionally accepted social agreements. Her work indirectly exposes the inherent contradictions, the latent violence, and the inevitable compromises embedded within these systems. Through a sculptural language, she translates these abstract structures into tangible spatial installations.

The “exhibition space” is a designated place for displaying and appreciating art. However, at a certain point, we begin to perceive everything placed within it as “art.” This transformation of space from a mere container of art into a defining framework that legitimizes art creates a paradox. Art, in turn, continuously produces alibis to validate itself as “art,” while anything illogical, irrational, unreasonable, or absurd is systematically erased or concealed in the process.

Emerging from a fatigue or skepticism toward these long-standing conventions, Kim’s exhibition reenacts the process of transforming the illogical, irrational, unreasonable, and absurd events she has personally encountered into something seemingly “artistic.” The faint figures of (false) protagonists subtly revealed on the exhibition walls, along with the responsive lights and sounds, form a fabricated “exhibition.” This outcome metaphorically critiques the way art has defined and legitimized itself both within and beyond institutional frameworks, aiming to expose its “plausible” façades in their rawest state.

References

• 아뜰리에 에르메스 (Atelier Hermès)