Solo Exhibitions (Brief)

Kira Kim began his solo exhibition career in 2006 at the King's Lynn Arts Centre in the UK and has since held numerous solo exhibitions at various institutions, including Kukje Gallery, Doosan Art Center, Alternative Space Loop, and Boan1942.

Group Exhibitions (Brief)

Kira Kim has participated in major international biennales such as the Gwangju Biennale, Busan Biennale, Jeju International Biennale, Liverpool Biennial, and Nanjing Triennale. He has also taken part in group exhibitions at renowned institutions both in Korea and abroad, including Leeum Museum of Art, Daejeon Museum of Art, the National Art Museum of China (Beijing), Osthaus Museum Hagen (Germany), and ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (Germany).

Awards (Selected)

He has received the ‘Korean Art Critics Association Artist Award’ (2024), the ‘Cultural Promotion Award for Overseas Contributors’ (2019), and the ‘Today’s Young Artist Award’ (2009). Additionally, he was a finalist for the ‘Korea Artist Prize’ in 2015.

Residencies (Selected)

Kira Kim was a resident artist at the Incheon Art Platform (2013) and Doosan Art Residency (New York, 2011).

Collections (Selected)

Kim’s works are housed in the collections of major institutions, including National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul Museum of Art, Kukje Gallery, Doosan Art Center, and Tate Members Collection(UK).

Originality & Identity

From the beginning of his practice, Kira Kim has sharply criticized the power structures, consumerism, and ideologies derived from the capitalist system. In his early solo exhibition 《The Republic of Propaganda》(Alternative Space Loop, 2008), works such as Still Life with one dollar(2008) and Coca Killar(2008) depict global brands and commercial imagery arranged like still-life objects, deconstructing the illusion embedded in commodities and the structure of human desire. This reflects his critical perspective on the false ideals masked as “universal values” in capitalist society.

In the solo exhibition 《Super Mega Factory》(Kukje Gallery, 2009), he presented iconic figures and symbols in subverted forms, encouraging viewers to question dominant narratives and common sense. The monstrous Superman or Queen Elizabeth with a black eye exposes the violence hidden beneath the surface of beauty and authority in ideology.

From 2013 onward, the 'A weight of Ideology’(2013-) series addressed the ideological division of Korea in a more personal and poetic tone. For instance, A Weight of Ideology_The Letters to North_Let Me Know How Are You?_On the Yellow Sea(2013), presented at 《Korea Artist Prize 2015》(MMCA, 2015), captures the act of sending a letter about Pyongyang naengmyeon in a bottle to an unknown recipient in North Korea, evoking the possibility of human exchange over grand ideological discourse.

His recent work Security Garden as Paranoia(2023), shown at 《14th Gwangju Biennale》(Gwangju Biennale Foundation, 2023), expands his critical gaze to questions of cultural identity and the Western gaze. By obsessively collecting and arranging objects deemed “Eastern,” Kim reveals the power dynamics of cultural othering and institutional classification. His perspective has evolved from individual concerns to societal critique and global discourse.

Style & Contents

Kira Kim materializes the complexity of his themes through a multimedia approach that traverses painting, installation, video, and performance. In his early works, he appropriated the format of still-life painting or used lighting installations to juxtapose capitalist images and texts, thereby dismantling the fetishism of consumer culture. In traditional oil-on-canvas works like Still Life with one dollar(2008) and Still Life with the Incredible Toy(2008), as well as LED-based installations like Coca Killar(2008) and Universal Experience(2008), he inserted iconic logos to appropriate and subvert the visual language of capitalism.

At 《Korea Artist Prize 2015》(MMCA, 2015), he presented site-based video documentation such as Floating Village_Government_Consumer_Individual_The sole in Seoul(2015) and the video installation A Weight of Ideology_Darkness at Noon(2014), which is based on a hypnotherapy session. These works offer a multilayered exploration of social structures and individual psychology. The dragging of the camera along the ground created a distinct visual approach to the fragmented urban terrain.

The work Floating Village_The Song of Wi Jaeryang(2015), a hybrid of performance and music video, consists of six musical tracks and videos created in response to poems by Wi Jaeryang, a sanitation worker and poet. Through collaborative production, Kim visualizes the intersection of communal sensitivity and political emotion.

Security Garden as Paranoia(2023) is composed of disparate objects such as ceramics, surveillance cameras, bonsai, masks, and picture frames—assembled into a dense sculptural installation that emphasizes the collision of symbolic meaning. Kim reconstructs contemporary narratives not through physical mimesis but through sensory fragmentation and the associative arrangement of images.

Topography & Continuity

Kira Kim’s work has consistently pursued a strategic approach that deconstructs the visual language of capitalism, amplifies the voices of marginalized individuals within social structures, and manifests these concerns across a wide range of media. The early critiques of capitalism—visible in his still-life paintings and LED installations—have since expanded into issues of ideological division (as seen in the 'A weight of Ideology’(2013-) series) and cultural othering (as in Security Garden as Paranoia), deepening his thematic scope and enhancing his sensitivity to geopolitical contexts.

Formally, his practice has shifted from static paintings to videos, sound, and complex multimedia installations. His collaborations with professionals from other fields actively test the potential of art as a discursive public sphere. His work maintains an emotional resonance while persistently advancing critical inquiry.

Today, Kim is invited to major biennales and institutional exhibitions both in Korea and internationally. He is widely recognized as a leading figure in Korean contemporary art, known for his analytical engagement with the visual politics of capitalism and ideology. His ability to transform weighty ideological subjects through humor, paradox, and emotional nuance has drawn growing attention on the global stage.

Kim’s practice continues to extend Korea’s specific political and cultural conditions into broader discourses. His critical interventions into art institutions, exhibition systems, and the mechanisms of collecting and recording serve as an essential challenge to the structural foundations of contemporary art itself.