Sung Hwan Kim (b. 1975), who works between New York and Amsterdam, has showcased a diverse range of works, incorporating various media such as film, video, drawing, music, architecture, and literature into installations, performances, radio dramas, and books. By utilizing these complex media, Kim develops a unique form of visual storytelling, gaining significant recognition both domestically and internationally.
 
Kim focuses on the space, history, language, and culture of a specific era referred to as the ‘present,’ exploring how social systems and educational institutions relate to the way we think and receive information. His works, often incorporating elements of biography, science fiction, folklore, mythology, and collective memory, create metaphors that address historical and social issues.

In 2003, after studying mathematics, architecture, and fine arts in the U.S., Sung Hwan Kim held his first exhibition in Korea titled “A-DA-DADA” at Total Museum of Art. In this show, he presented his works A-DA-DA (2002) and her (2003) alongside pieces by his mentor, video artist Joan Jonas, experimental filmmaker Joe Gibbons, and his friend Nina Yeun.
 
By showcasing video art across different generations, Kim also prepared works from over 40 video artists and filmmakers who had influenced his own practice as reference material. Though the exhibition focused on Kim, it wove together a network of many interconnected works, creating a rich, layered experience.

The artist explained this exhibition approach by stating, "A single person's brain is merely one of the countless objects in the world. Therefore, an artist holding a solo exhibition should consider whether to display only their own work or to recognize that their creations are also social products and present their surrounding world along with their own works."
 
In this exhibition, Kim used the onomatopoeic phrase "A-DA-DADA," which represents stuttering, as the theme, showcasing the process of shaping his unique visual language through verbal refinement. For instance, in the video work A-DA-DA (2002), he had two Asian Americans perform as a Korean father and son, using stuttering and faltering communication to explore the culturally and generationally disconnected relationships.

In this way, Sung Hwan Kim’s video works prioritize narrative, historicity, and performativity over the visual effects or installation aesthetics typically associated with video art. His video piece Washing Brain and Corn (2010), commissioned for the Media City Seoul in 2010, combines events from Korea’s modern history with fictional tales, autobiographical elements, and collective memory.
 
The work began with Kim imagining the image of a hand washing a brain with water—a reference drawn from Rilke’s poem Corpse-Washing, where the act of washing a corpse is described, evoking associations with washing brain. The video is based on the story of Lee Seung-bok, a boy killed for reportedly saying, "나는 공산당이 싫어요(I hate communists)," which was used extensively in anti-communist ideology education in Korea. Kim narrates this story through the voice of his young second-generation Korean American niece.
 
Unfamiliar with the historical context, the child tells the story in English but switches to Korean to say the phrase "나는 공산당이 싫어요." This work raises questions about how history is translated through others in contexts of temporal, geographical, cultural, and linguistic disconnections.

Washing Brain and Corn later expanded into a radio play and publication, and was last shown in its full installation version for the Tanks at Tate Modern in 2012, when Kim was the first commissioned exhibition artist in that new space.

In this way, Sung Hwan Kim has consistently borrowed from literary texts to create works that metaphorically explore relationships between individuals, history, and humanity. His 2012 video work Temper Clay is a reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear, centered around modern Korean history.
 
The title, ‘Temper Clay,’ refers to the act of mixing clay with water and is taken from a line in King Lear. "Old fond eyes, Beweep this cause again I’ll pluck ye out And cast you, with the waters that you loose, To temper clay." Kim uses this imagery to draw parallels between the familial conflict and disintegration seen in King Lear, driven by desires for power and wealth, and the conflicts, absurdities, and tragedies of Korean society.
 
The setting of the work—a lakeside villa and a 1970s apartment complex in Apgujeong-dong—functions as a mirrored structure that reflects both the time and space of King Lear and post-1970s Korean society, intertwining their historical and social contexts.

In his 2014 solo exhibition “Life of Always a Mirror” at Art Sonje Center, Kim presented an experimental exhibition that organically combined videos, drawings, installations, and performances, including Temper Clay. Through this integrated approach, Kim explored the exhibition as an educational method, offering a reflective and innovative structure that invited viewers to reconsider the role of exhibitions.

First of all, the artist transformed the architectural structure of the exhibition as a framework to rethink the attitudes and methods of teaching that are prevalent in society. He divided the exhibition into two distinct spaces based on their character and composition, creating a mirror-like structure that repeatedly reflected the existing architecture. The entrance was moved beyond a long corridor, and different heights architectural installations appeared in a proliferating, repetitive manner, creating a maze-like path.
 
This exhibition extended Kim's ongoing exploration of displacement in time and space into the spatial dimension. The space, in turn, resonated with works that shared these themes, allowing viewers to experience the ripple effects, transformations, or fading of narratives across different eras and spaces in a more immersive, multisensory way.

Meanwhile, in his work Love before Bond (2017), which was produced for the main exhibition of the Venice Biennale, Sung Hwan Kim raised questions about the ethics and aesthetics of race, culture, and migration. The piece freely incorporates and connects texts from various sources, such as Korean news articles and Shakespeare’s Sonnets, using language as a medium not just for directive function but as something devoid of inherent authorship, with endless potential for transformation.
 
The video references historical events with social significance, such as the 1992 LA Riots, which involved clashes between African Americans and Korean immigrants. In the video, a Korean-American girl and a Sudanese boy mirror each other’s learned gestures for avoiding discrimination, metaphorically addressing the issue of racial discrimination in American society.

Kim’s recent work Hair is a piece of head (2021), shown at the Hawai'i Triennial 2022, delves into the history of immigrants from early 20th century Korea to the United States. It forms part of his ongoing multi-research series, A Record of Drifting Across the Sea (2017–), and is presented through video, books, and installation.
 
Hair is a piece of head is set in Hawai'i, which served as both a geographical and conceptual transit point not only for Korean immigrants but for many early immigrants crossing the Pacific for centuries. Hawai'i was often the first "American land" they stepped onto. By interpreting Hawai'i as both a geographical location and an idea, Kim connects the figure of the drifter to the land where they landed, using this as a method to understand the tragedy of a foreign country.
 
He explores what is uncovered during the process of historicizing this journey and what new structures and images emerge from it. Through the juxtaposition of metaphorical scenes and archival photographs, new cognitive and psychological boundaries are established.

In this way, Kim unravels the diverse and complex layers embedded in history and the way they are transmitted through his own poetic lens. By borrowing from literary texts and journalistic records, he reconstructs these into new forms of storytelling, shaping them into multi-layered visual structures across various media. In doing so, he creates a narrative web that infiltrates the psychological and cognitive dimensions of the audience, generating possibilities for alternative communication.

"Before I use language, there exists the history and transformation of that language by those who used it before me. When I attempt to convey something through such a language, I see the history of how that content has been delivered.
 
And as I think about the will and the intention behind communicating that content, I also consider how it has been recorded. When communication occurs, I think about the personal history of the people involved, the economic and cultural background that shaped them, and the history of the place where the communication takes place. I create the records of communication through my work while reflecting on these factors."

(Sung Hwan Kim | Leeum Meets the Artists #41)

Sung Hwan Kim studied architecture at Seoul National University before moving to the United States, where he double majored in mathematics and art at Williams College. He later earned a master's degree in visual arts from MIT and completed a residency at the Rijksakademie Amsterdam. Kim is the winner of the Hermès Korea art prize (2007), the Prix de Rome (2007), and, with dogr, the Karl-Sczuka-Förderpreis (2010) for the radio work one from in the room.
 
He has held solo exhibitions at various venues including Museum of Modern Art (New York, 2021), daadgalerie (Berlin, 2018), The Tanks at Tate Modern (London, 2012), Kunsthalle Basel (Basel, 2011). He has participated in group exhibitions including the Hawaiʻi Triennial 2022 and 57th Venice Biennale (2017).

References

• 김성환, Sung Hwan Kim (Artist Website)
• 2022 부산비엔날레, 김성환 (2022 Busan Biennale, Sung Hwan Kim)
• 바라캇 컨템포러리, 김성환: 밤의 기스 (Barakat Contemporary, Sung Hwan Kim: Night Crazing)
• 연합뉴스, 비엔날레 출품작들을 만나다…김성환 바라캇 컨템포러리 개인전, 2022.08.30
• 국립현대미술관, 김성환(데이비드 마이클 디그레고리오(dogr로도 알려진)와 음악 공동 작업) | 템퍼 클레이 | 2012 (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Korea (MMCA), Sung Hwan Kim(in musical collaboration with David Michael DiGregorio a.k.a. dogr) | Temper Clay | 2012)
• 아트선재센터, 김성환: 늘 거울 생활 (Art Sonje Center, Sung Hwan Kim: Life of Always a Mirror)