“Dew Kim Solo Exhibition: The Last Scene.” Art Space Loop, Seoul.
There is an artist who unfolds his artistic world through three seemingly disparate keywords: ‘Christianity,’ ‘queer,’ and ‘K-pop.’ If you are curious about this unusual combination, I recommend visiting Dew Kim’s Solo Exhibition, “The Last Scene.”
Dew Kim (b. 1985) incorporates queerness, feminism, pop culture, shamanistic beliefs, mysticism, and religious elements into his artwork through various media such as performance, installation, and video. As a queer artist with a Christian background, Kim has explored the compatibility of queerness and Christianity and the connection between K-pop and Christianity.
Kim explores the connection between the House of Xtravaganza, an underground ball culture that first emerged in New York City, Christianity, and the choreography of voguing. In the exhibition, Kim compares Jesus’s way of forming a community with the House of Xtravaganza, which also functions as an alternative family for people excluded from the mainstream system. Kim is also intrigued by the repeated use of the Catholic Stations of the Cross hand symbol in modern dance and choreography and incorporates these gestures in his performance. Of the exhibited works, Metatemple, an alternative sanctuary where those excluded from heteronormative values live together, is about the intersectionality of Christianity and queerness; Last Scenes is a video work comparing the last scenes of K-Pop stages and the death and resurrection of Jesus in Christian narrative.
