Moon: There seem to be a lot of works with the word “Garden” in the name, which sounds quite contradictory. Hearing the word “Garden” conjures up the image of not nature itself but the longing and aspiration toward nature. But are not your works designed in modular units through a detailed blueprint, created in a factory you commission and then assembled together later? To me, that seems like the very symbol of the contemporary machine civilization and therefore intuitively far from a “Garden.” What’s the reason you call them that?
Kim: A garden is a nature that’s been touched somehow. Even in a small yard of a country house has been directed by the owner who lays out the plants and trees and so on. Nowadays, a lot of people live in the city and the urban space is the central means of living in most countries. And when a building or a large complex is built in a city, a garden always follows along and creates an even bigger of a dramatic effect. So a garden becomes a part of the living space that has been planned out and we take for granted, at the same time the ideals of what we desire. The longing to escape the city to nature and the artificial intention to create it — I thought that a “Garden” represented all that.
Moon: Then it seems a “Garden” symbolizes the artificial material environment as well as the institutional system that surrounds us. But while your works generally share that context, not all your works are part of the “Garden” series, are they? What works are “Garden”?
Kim: Firstly, the works of the “Garden” series have a straight-lined and linear characteristic. I call them “Vertical Garden” or “Horizontal Garden” according to their forms, because the very idea of vertical and horizontal is straight-lined and linear — also logical and well-arranged. These are settings, made unnaturally by humans. And I give the name “Garden” to a work that intentionally seeks a breakthrough in my living environment — a space that has been planned and created by humans — like the other nature that infiltrates and invades, that I take part in and that I desire. The work with 7-degrees-tilted straight lines titled “Garden” (2013) was the first of my “Garden” series. The second thing about the “Garden” series is that they consist of repetitive forms, like the mass-produced industrial goods that are made identically with repeating patterns. In nature, every entity has its own uniqueness and differences, despite how similar they may seem. On the other hand, in the contemporary industrial civilization we reside, many products are the same. That’s the idea that I put in the works — the idea that the same forms are made and repeated under planned-out patterns. There are works like “Garden” (2013) and “Linear Garden” (2017) where uniform lines are colored differently and orderly arranged, whereas the “Vertical garden – beautiful replication” (2017) series where a single form has been repeated and arranged in a certain pattern. I work so that the objet is created through a divided process and then assembled together to become one product. That method has led me to think whether that may be the very way to speak for the environment that I accommodate and express the mass-produced environment, which led to the inception of the “Garden” series. A garden. We like to say that the Japanese gardens are artificial and planned out whereas Korean gardens are more natural, but are not the gardens of our palaces also the fruits of our design? They are the results of our intervention with nature and it made me feel somewhat uncomfortable. The truth must have been bitter.
Moon: Do you mean to say that you did not like them? I thought you reflected them in your works because you liked them, like the early 20th century Italian futurists were mesmerized by the machine civilization. Of course, your works do seem distanced compared to the immersive and ecstatic futurist artists.
Kim: It is the fact that I disliked them that keeps me doing what I do. But it’s different from a criticism. Every artist sees the world with their own perspective, but it doesn’t mean that they always name something as good or bad. Nature is not static. It is always changing. That’s why people always look for nature and aspire to it. On the other hand, these concrete buildings do not change. It is true that we, including myself, live amidst this rigid, linear system and feel comfortable inside it. In a way, we like things that are orderly and organized. It is that awareness of the ambiguity that leads me to expose myself as who likes those orderly things. As for the things that change, we actually feel a sense of relaxation from things that are vertical, horizontal or right-angled. The right angle is the most calming structure for us, because it has both two horizontals or two verticals. If a house or a building that we live in is not right-angled, that it becomes an unstable structure for us. So in my work, whether it be intentional or not, I try to avoid a right angle. Twisting the comfort zone of the right angle to arouse fear and anxiety can be anti-artificialness, or at least an effort to escape the artificial to become natural. That’s why a lot of my works are structurally unstable, because a lot of people actually feel nervous but also a sense of refreshing pleasure at the same time.
Moon: Then it seems the work carries a type of paradox within itself — like the garden itself. A garden, despite its efforts to mimic nature, is ironically very artificial, while your “Garden” series express the artificial environment of the contemporary industrial civilization but embodies the seemingly unstable structure of “an effort to escape the artificial to become natural.” If so, was the “Mediated Memory” pagoda-style work you installed in Songwang Temple in 2016, which also consists of metal modules that you designed and were manufactured in a commissioned factory and whose color was meant to darken into heavier hues by nature through the course of time, also intended with a paradox in mind — such as, the most natural artifact?
Kim: I wouldn’t say I intended that much. I don’t follow through with a plan from A to Z when I’m working. What I did intend, however, was to follow a typical Korean three-story pagoda structure that has a base stylobate, body and head and to make that out of bronze. I gave polished it multiple times so that it gets glossy gold color. I made it so that the contemporary aura of the objet is amplified to the fullest and that it would naturally wane over time. I don’t think you intend a paradox with a work. I think our lives are a paradox in itself and it’s just naturally reflected onto the works. I don’t feel or ponder on any contradiction in working. I enjoy working by using the industrialized and segmented social system, not at all stressful. I think I find it fun because my personality and attitude has been formed by living in the environment that surrounds me. That’s why I think more about how I want to decide the direction I want to take in my life and what thoughts I am thinking.
Moon: But it seems with the titles of works such as “A Section of the Garden” (2017) or “A Cross Section of Civilization” (2017), you cut up the garden to show its cross section and cut up the civilization to show its cross section. What does this mean?
Kim: To look at a cross section is to not leave a subject in its unknown state but, for the sake of the human curiosity and desire, and perhaps for a certain interpretation, to cut it up and observe it. Herein lies a type of pleasure, one that arises when, for example, we look at a cross section of a machine and determine its internal functions and the hidden mechanisms. A cross section consequently reduces the various forms and functions into a flat surface. And here, making it a flat surface is an important setting. I have been focusing on flatness since 2017. This is what I think: ‘Civilization created flatness.’ Flatness is not at all natural but extremely artificial, created for the progression of civilization — that is, the basis of our approach to building our very own Tower of Babel. The sciences needed flatness as its prerequisite, like the many mathematical methodologies that are built upon the premises of the vertical, horizontal and right angle such as the Euclidian geometry. We have also been physically making our environment flat. We satisfy ourselves with and feel comfortable within it. So for me to see flatness and make flatness is an artistic approach to reflecting back on my attitude toward this society formed by the material civilization, on my way of understanding and interpreting it, and also on myself as a being who is lives having adapted to a space with many flat surfaces.
Moon: But “A Section of the Garden – 3LB” seems its flat surfaces are erected and bent to embrace space and build a 3-dimensional form.
Kim: ‘Flatness’ is an abstract concept, in order which to physically portray it needed the setting of ‘thickness,’ thus making that thickness show well is an important aspect of this work. The dictionary definition of thickness is the gap between two parallel flat surfaces. This too is an extremely artificial set-up, but one that we feel familiar with. Many of the materials that constitute our everyday products, like tables or chairs, as standardized flatness show their physical existence through thickness. For instance, with the case of “A Section of the Garden – 19LB,” which is made in the form of a fan, it flaunts a glamorous form when seen from the front, but when seen from the side, a thin thickness is rather more visible because it’s just the cross sections stuck to other cross sections. The thickness [of the aluminum panels] that is seen from the side of “A Cross Section of Civilization” is also more important than what is seen from the front. This side of the thickness also creates a beautiful reflection of its surrounding environment and the light. This is ultimately the cross section of the contemporary material civilization and at the same time my attitude toward it.
Moon: I also remember “Horizontal Garden” (2018) and “Vertical garden – beautiful replication” (2017) as works that particularly created a strong effect by reflecting off the surrounding environment and light. In fact, the latter work even has that hinted in its title. Have the elliptical sphere shapes hanging at the end of a straight line, which are repeated in these works, been inspired by the stamen of a flower?
Kim: The elliptical spheres are lumps of the straight lines. They are masses, a sort of a mutant, protruding from the planned-out, artificial environment of the straight lines and flat surfaces. I like to think of them as ‘the lumps of civilization.’ Even though the word ‘lump’ itself does not carry a positive meaning, the masses of our desire that arises from our civilization could seem like beautiful crystals. So in the case of “Horizontal Garden,” it was meant to make the lumps of civilization reflect the light, while shining by reflecting and replicating each other, become a beautiful mass that mesmerizes like a chandelier. To achieve that, it was important to design and finish the processed metal so that it gets the optimal form. I also designed it so that I could fit as many elliptical spheres as I could through many experiments, because the more elliptical spheres were closer to each other, the more the reflection and thus the bigger the glamorous effect. They tell the mesmerizing, perhaps delusional, side of civilization. But rather than criticizing it, I’m also confessing that I too am captured by that beauty from time to time.
Moon: Some of your earlier works have the phrase “Silent Pollens,” like “Silent Pollens” (2009), “Three-hundred Silent Pollens” (2009), “Silent Pollens – Blue” (2009) and “Silent Pollens – Black” (2010). Their forms seem both like stamen and trumpet horns, and they were accompanied by sound. They’re silent despite having sounds?
Kim: There are plants that use bees and birds to spread their pollen but also that use the wind. I think they’re called “anemophilous.” Pollen travels by wind to silently settle down, pollinate and give off fruit. This reminds me of the silent progression and dispersion of civilization. Civilization comes to us through many generations, so it’s not something that we can immediately see and say, ‘This is how civilization started and this is how it has ended up here now.’ Because it happens over a very long period of time, its cycle is a lot bigger than that of one person, one individual living entity. I wanted to express the silent dispersion and expansion that happens within the macro cycle within my work. The horn-like figures and sound, which imply a sense of expansion, are a part of that expression. I also wanted to administer a non-physical aspect of sound into a physical objet work.
Moon: But you once said before that you make the sound almost inaudible so that the viewers are not passively exposed to the sound. But is it possible to actively hear a sound?
Kim: Just as the physical objet of my work had been made from industrial production materials that are found easily around us, the sounds that come from the works are also easily heard in our lives. Some of them sound like bird songs. They are in fact quite similar. This is because the two sounds’ wavelengths are similar. But bird songs are so familiar to us that we can just pass by without noticing them. And they’re also quite small volume-wise, so about half the people can hear it inside a quiet exhibit hall. But if it was in a commercial space, then only one in ten people could hear it, if they could. That’s why rather than forcing the sound of the work to be heard, the viewers can perceive the sound if and when they choose to actively hear it. This is intended to express the essence of civilization. It progresses and spreads quietly to surround us, and we only become aware of it despite being right in the middle of it. It goes the same for the media environment around us. In the contemporary era, media is, in a way, beyond the level of acceptance and just surrounds us everywhere like air. I thought about how I could actively accept the media and then came up with these works. That’s why there are the “Silent Propagation” series works. Propagation means to reproduce, proliferate, propagate and disseminate at the same time. At the end of the day, it’s the story of the environment that we fondly live in.
Moon: This book has a blueprint of the works. Just as musicians leave their music scores and other descending musicians play the piece, do you intend for your work to be created by other people?
Kim: That would actually be nice. It would be fun. With works that can be replicated with just the blueprint, I usually make four pieces — including three editions and an artist proof (AP). The editions are meant to be shared by a lot of people and the AP is for the artist to keep, so that the artist and possess it, perhaps to exhibit it or for other purposes. My works are mapped, so sometimes I create each of the three editions in different countries, for realistic reasons like shipping or taxes (when the exhibition or the buyer is in a different country). But in addition to that, they could be created by other people posthumously.
Moon: With conceptual art like that of artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres, he gave directions to his work in the manner of, ‘Display candies like so and so in a way that they are piled up in an exhibition hall like so and so,’ and is that not how his works are exhibited, and that in itself an artwork? So in your case, could your blueprints be a piece of your work too? Since your sculptures are made through industrial production, does it mean that your hand doesn’t have to be the one to make the finishing touches to the results?
Kim: You’re right. My works are mapped precisely through CAD so it’s no work making the same one. You just have to use the standardized ingredient. The colors used in each work are recorded with their own color tables and numbers. They don’t change. But some could be taken out or added later. So anyone could replicate my work whenever they want with my blueprint. I’m not sure what will happen three thousand years later, though.
Moon: Mozart’s music was played only by himself when he was alive but other people play it now. I think it allows for us to transcend the limitations of time and space. In that sense, I believe your works to be conceptual. They’re very material, but conceptual in a peculiar way. I think you could even leave a will like this: ‘My work is art that is like music. Just as anyone can play off of a composer’s scores posthumously, I shall allow anyone to create my sculptures with the blueprints that I leave.’ That way, just as we hear on the FM Classic Music radio channels “Bach’s ‘Cello Suites,’ by so and so,” there could one day be in the future “Byoungho Kim’s ‘Garden,’ by so and so.”
Kim: That’s a great idea. I could even make open editions so that anyone could make them. I think there will be a lot of people creating them if I make the maps so easy that they don’t have to be an engineer to make them but anyone who could put together a toy could do it. I could help people enjoy music through that method. I could work on pieces to be sold in the art market, but at the same time open edition pieces with publicized blueprints that can be made by anyone. I could distribute my maps just as composers publish their scores. I think about the ways that people could share art through. With the case of “Mediated Memories” (2016), I made the objet to be very contemporary but it actually started from thinking about how I could share my work. I wanted to touch on the notion of a long-sustained community, which is why I needed the temple pagoda as a symbol. But what you talk of now sounds like just distributing it to the system — like the propaganda leaflets. [South Korea and North Korea used to distribute propaganda leaflets across the borders, which were called ppira.] I like it.
Moon: And through that, they can continue being made for hundreds or even thousands of years, gaining a touch of sublimity given through infinitely-lasting time. It’ like what Edmund Burke said, “Infinity has a tendency to fill the mind with that sort of delightful horror, which is the most genuine effect, and truest test of the sublime.” Sublimity comes in both the form of space and time, and your works also give a sense of infinite expansion through the modules that repeat themselves into the space. Burke also pointed out how sound with repeating intervals or patterns have a lasting effect as if to continue even after its termination, thereby reaching infinity. “Mediate Memories” also give that impression. In fact, humans’ architecture of towers stems from the urge for escalation and both the Latin and Greek origins of the word sublimity — sublimus and hypsous — come from the words that mean to ascend. The first time I saw your work was in 2011 in a solo exhibition held in Arario Gallery in Seoul, and I felt that “Soft Crash” transcended the physical space that it actually occupied. It reminded me of a gigantic dandelion spore, or maybe a star exploding with a white-silver flash of light. And even though it was made of metal, it seemed to have transcended materiality, to infinitely expand beyond the spatial limitations of its physical being. The rhythmical and continual sounds, which were played through the vibrations of a digital device in the middle of it, added to that sense of expansion. So in a way, I felt that it was formless despite having a form, as if it had transcended form. Immanuel Kant distinguished the beautiful and the sublime, saying that while the beautiful is concerned with form, the sublime may even be formless. Do you work with ideas like these in mind? Do you make your works, intending to create a sense of sublimity?
Kim: For me, it’s like this. Do you know how sometimes when you look at a building next door through the window, it’s so big that you can neither see the bottom or the top of it and only the repeating pattern of the building’s structure? A sense of mechanic sublimity can arise from places like these.
I believe sublimity presents itself not in a familiar environment with a specific form, but somehow in things that feel uncanny and unapproachable despite thinking that you’re fond of them — when they cannot be defined as beautiful, as you mentioned, but when you feel a complex collection of things, such as a meaning that goes beyond and an expansion of a possible future. Figure-wise, something geometric — To be frank, people all like to read a lot into a circle, whether they’re from the East or the West. But a circle is also an unnatural thing.
And in a way, we could say that a circle is an extension of a straight line. I think our environment has made us become familiar with elements like circles, straight lines and squares because the contemporary civilization has brought them into our lives. But in a way, they’re very foreign to us.
The sublime has to base itself on the things that we’re familiar with but at the same time make us feel estranged from certain parts. For instance, we like to think of a god in the form of a human and that’s the familiar form that we want. The materials that we use become the basis and sublimity could arise from the familiar scale or their attitude toward unity.
I do not believe that sublimity can come about from something entirely unfamiliar. Some materials embody sublimity within themselves. Like the ultramarine paint that I like or the Vantablack that Anish Kapoor uses — the unique marvel only that material can give, I believe that could be a sense of sublime but different from beauty.
Moon: The Vantablack is material but simultaneously immaterial, because it absorbs almost all the light and gives off no reflecting light so we cannot tell whether it’s 2-dimensinoal or 3-dimensional, or whether it’s a flat surface that’s been painted, whether it has a solid body, or whether it’s a pitch-black space.
Kim: You’re right — it’s material but it becomes immaterialized. There are also cases with a material objet where it’s collectively formed and it becomes immaterialized as it’s repeated and patternized and it loses its materiality. When we see a brick, we notice its materiality. But when we see a brick pillar, the brick only becomes a vertical or horizontal pattern of the pillar. I think I use this naturally in my work. I arrange the mass-produced objet — such as metal wires, tubes or panels — so that they become a part of a pattern. I think it’s important to not just perceive the environment that we live in as it is but to have an attitude that thinks about why and how that environment was formed, what I intend to look at, how I will perceive it and how I am going to get involved. I try to observe everyday details with a macro perspective. I’ve always had the tendency to think from a young age to think about my relationship between entities, whether that be between me and other people or between me and things, to observe it and think on it. I actually thought about majoring in philosophy in university. I like to observe the environment that I live in. It is my intention to rid the empirical functions from the everyday material of an industrialized environment and to rearrange and combine them to touch people’s hearts. I would call it that, rather than sublime. Touching someone heart could be done pleasurably, but also frighteningly.
An objet made from everyday material and form that we had felt familiar and fond of could be monumentalized, or on the contrary, become unfamiliar and unstable to give a sense of both pleasure and displeasure at the same time. I think that leads to the sublime.