KIM Inbai: Turbulent o'clock

Arario Gallery Cheonan presents Turbulent O’clock, the 4th solo exhibition of Korean artists Inbai Kim from March 8th to April 24th, 2011.

Inbai Kim’s thought-provoking works freely traverse the two dimensional, sculptural and spatial, fusing or transforming flat drawings and sculptures. His long-standing focus running deep through his oeuvre has always been to ‘return to the original intention.’ In order to hold fast onto his original intention, the artist developed the works in this exhibition through simple drawings and idea sketches rather than having a fixed final outcome in mind. He used pencil drawings and aluminum sticks in the working process, which metamorphosed into sculptural works and installations of aluminum sticks and fishing lines.

Unlike his previous works in which one form becomes one work, this exhibition displays an assembly of works in which ten or more forms make up one work. First of all, Kim divided the human body into head, torso and limbs. Each of the sculptural pieces accurately expresses the human muscle structure like Greek sculptures. Although the heads are missing eyes, nose, and mouth, and the torsos are limbless, the detailed muscles are enough to convey the posture of the figures. A sense of dynamic energy is felt in the limbs covered in tight muscles, and the seemingly static group of male torsos portrays movement through shifts in color.

What the artist wishes to deliver through these dynamic works is “rhythm.” An important musical element and a painterly tool of color and composition, Kim produces rhythm through the repetition of his sculptural works. For this exhibition, the artist intends to freely form a curve in space with the works, rhythmically placing them on pedestals or suspending them from the ceiling.

The tallest work in the exhibition exposes the human body comparatively more than other works. Suggesting the winding movement of a pitcher, this work portrays numerous poses of different time frames captured in one figure. From distance the headless torso seems to suggest a robust male figure throwing a ball; upon closer look, however, each of the arms, torso and legs are twisted in such a way that cannot possibly be positioned altogether at once. The motionless figure has a powerful hold over time, expressing the human posture before and after a certain movement in a 10-second interval. The figure portrays a pitcher at the moment of throwing a ball, capturing his posture in consecutive intervals within a 10-second time frame.

Inbai Kim is interested in the notion of feasible range. Artists establish a range of feasibility to actualize interesting ideas. Kim’s unyielding efforts to transcend such limitative range are apparent in the works in the exhibition, as they combine elements of movement, rhythm and time. The artist’s desire is for his works to deeply reverberate within the audience. Above all, the artist’s ultimate aspiration is to fully express himself through deeply resonant works of rhythm and speed.