Productive Imperfection
Text by Laura Pieri
2022
Kim's current artistic research analyses the phenomenon of the alienation of individuals in contemporary society; we no longer speak of people but of anonymous entities that find themselves in a highly passive position despite being aware of and acknowledging their existence and singularity at the same time. From territorial empires, we have moved on to new economic realms, and one of the consequences of globalisation is a tendency towards cultural flattening and self-expression. "The study of individuals and communities from a colonialist perspective has been extended to the new imperialist context in the market-oriented economy that now constitutes the totality [...] Recently, in particular, I have been observing the fact that even art loses its independence as it becomes embedded in the system and I explore the phenomenon of art objects cleverly acquiring their values as products while successfully maintaining the ostentation of not being produced. Through this lens, I explore the colonisation of art objects within an artistic context and study the possibility of de-colonial artistic expression in a state of chaos between the ambiguous boundaries of reality and surreality or commodities and art objects".
Productive Imperfection is part of the artist's series of works with the egg as their protagonist object. A profoundly symbolic element, it takes on a political significance in these works: if, on the one hand, it is linked to nature, at the same time, it is an actual consumer product, like any other in the dynamics of capitalism. According to Kim, in the logic of capital, the increase in productivity for profit usually harms the individual in the name of a greater good. Specifically, in this work, the artist seeks to reveal and pay attention to how over time, the dynamics of capitalism have shifted from labour and products to relationships and culture and how art is still able to rebel against this mechanism. "The objects applied to the work are deliberately completed in an incomplete form, enhancing artistic productivity" and breaking away from the dynamics of serial productivity and profit".