Artists
South Korea
Heesoo Agnes Kim
In Search for the Green Ray
22.11.22 16.12.22
Heesoo Agnes Kim is a Korean artist who makes use of a variety of media ranging from installation, performance, sculpture, video, drawing, text, and sound to touch on notions of life, self-identification and the social influences that affect how a personality is constructed. She explores a range of possibilities, from metamorphosis to transformation to questioning the construction of a self relayed through social phenomena, nature, animal masks, childhood toys and stories as the means to communicate her concerns.
Thanks to the agreement that Fundación´ace has with ARKO–Arts Council Korea, Agnes came to Buenos Aires in the last slot of 2022 to continue her ongoing project Searching for the Green Ray, a project that chronicles the daily progress of a journey in search of a green ray through the camera lens. As part of this process in Buenos Aires, Agnes documented a tango couple in our studio and also filmed the horizon over the Río de la Plata, looking for the elusive green rays that appear in the early stages of dawn and the latest moments of dusk.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I define my artistic practice as pertaining to notions of life and self-identification. It plays upon the notion of dreams and deals with issues of self-identification and the social influences that affect how a personality is constructed. I am exploring a range of possibilities –employing a variety of media, ranging from installation, performance, sculpture, video, drawing, text, and sound– from metamorphosis to transformation to questioning the construction of a self relayed through social phenomena, nature, animal masks, childhood toys and stories as the means to communicate my concerns. Between the reality of existence and the search for truth the vitality of my art practice is tempered. The purpose of our existence is not to meet the expectations we create of an idealized world, but to destroy the strength and virtue of ideals. The essence of life then is to search and the artistic concern in my art is struggle of identity. Social goals may continue for generations, but they are initially expressed through individuals.
BIO
Heesoo Agnes Kim
1984 | Seoul, South Korea
Lives and works in Seoul, South Korea
EDUCATION
2016 | Seoul National University, Master of Fine Arts, Seoul, Republic of Korea
2009 | Whitecliffe, Bachelor of Fine Arts, Auckland, New Zealand
EXHIBITIONS
2021 | Fragments Of Time. Hongti Art Center, Busan, South Korea
2021 | Spiegel Im Spiegel. Sukpajung Seoul Museum, Seoul, South Korea
2020 | The Breath In The Wind. Mythtake Museum, Gyeonggi Gapyeong, South Korea
2019 | Letters From Poets. Yongeun Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwangju, South Korea
2019 | Art Nova 100 International. Guardian Art Center, Beijing, China
2019 | ARTE LAGUNA PRIZE 18-19 FINALISTS EXHIBITION. Arsenale of Venice, Venezia, Italy
AWARDS & RESIDENCIES
2020 | Publishing Korean Art Abroad Visual Artist, Ministry of Culture Sports and Tourism & Korea Arts Management Service
2020 | Enhancing the Competence of Artists, Seongdong Cultural Foundation, Korea Artist Welfare Foundation, Seoul, South Korea
2020 | COCA 2020 Finalist, Center of Contemporary Artists, Rome, Italy
2019 | Convergence Arts Content Academy, Yonsei University, Seoul Cultural Foundation, South Korea
2019 | Residency Unlimited, New York, USA
2018 | STS&P Smart Design International Selected Exhibition Award, KINTEX, Ilsan, South Korea
Related Activities
´aceNITE, Exhibitions
Revelations
Artists in Dialogue
06.12.22
What is the nature of reality? Do we all experience the same reality? How is it revealed?
Catching sleep every night, when insomnia appears, thinking does not stop and our eyes remain open even though we close them, when anguish or perhaps fear of increasingly threatening shadows occurs… it is at that moment that we are in a bit out of reality? On the contrary, when we fall asleep and dream, within the dream, no matter how absurd what we dream is, we feel that it is real. How do you experience the supernatural, that which cannot be explained by the laws of nature or that exceeds its limits, that set off realities, known by revelation or admitted by faith? Do these facts, which are not entitatively natural, exist as well as the facts of the natural world?
What are the limits? Do these limits exist? Or do you flow between wakefulness, sleep and the state in between?
In Insomnis, Heesoo Agnes Kim plays with the notion of dreams, deals with issues of self-identification, explores the limits between time, light and life. With his camera, Mitchell Sell discovers the phenomenon of blurring of social and political boundaries that occurred in Buenos Aires when Argentina won its third World Cup. Alex Karolyi in The Unknown, works with true supernatural and paranormal stories (in this case related to the house of ´ace itself) in a performative way, considering that everyone has a story to share, whether visible or invisible. Finally, Hee Ju Im in Outputs investigates those sounds that are constantly heard but overlooked, a being that is everywhere but does not reveal itself, a being that cannot define limits or a being that erases limits, and therefore both a being of “otherness” thrown out of bounds. All of them, from different perspectives, reveal to us fluctuating aspects of our “realities”.
ALICIA CANDIANI
Exhibitions
Insomnis
Heesoo Agnes Kim
06.12.22 23.12.22
As part of her ongoing project that seeks to find the green ray in different locations during the nighttime around the globe, Heesoo Agnes Kim shared with the local public a video performance excerpt. During the opening, Agnes was able to converse with the guests about her process, her interests and the personal and artistic reasons behind such a quest. Her video installation opened on Tuesday, December 6th 2022 and remained open until Friday, December 23rd 2022, the day we close the studio for the summer recess.
Together with Agnes, her Korean colleague Hee Ju Im opened her exhibition, and we also hosted the work of our residents Michael Sell (USA), Alex Karolyi (Canada) and Marcela Caballero (Argentina).
ABOUT INSOMNIS by Heesoo Kim
I have been interested in the boundaries of time, light, and life that cannot be conceptualized fragmentarily, as well as the imperfection of structuralized language. Notably, I pay attention to the boundaries between language and concepts that can be seen at the junctions among time, light, and life, and our uncertain life influenced by them. Among the series of natural and social phenomena derived through them, I use the properties of light as a kind of MacGuffin in my work. Light, while it reveals indeterminacy within my work and projects the boundary between time and life, it is operated as a tool that do not expose the meaning.
INSOMNIS Travailler à l’heure bleue is a performance video leading from nighttime till the sunrise. Insomnia, a word derived from the Latin word ‘insomnis’ that means lack of sleep, was described using the word ‘agrypnotic’ in Greek that also means ‘to pursue sleep’ or to actively pursue something that is missing. In the title INSOMNIS Travailler à l’heure bleue, ‘travail’ which means ‘to work’ in French is derived from the Latin word ‘tripalium’ that is believed to have meant a torture instrument constituting of three stakes. It is also related to the English word ‘travel.