A garden is a human-scaled cosmos that can be tamed. Just as an overgrown forest is pruned to create an artificial garden, the artist indulges in the sculptural values unique to mechanical civilization. What first catches the eye is the cluster of shimmering points of light, as radiant metal elliptical spheres reflecting surrounding light sources captivate the viewer. The gaze shifts from the overall panorama to microscopic structures—from the inflated spheres to the linear pillars supporting them, tracing the surface of raw metal. Among the dazzling scenery, lines and planes subtly recede behind the shadows of volume.
Aesthetic Forms
Let us adopt an inverted perspective toward the Vertical Garden and Horizontal Garden series. From the initial sketches on paper to the refined metallic cross-sections, every three-dimensional form in KIM Byoungho’s machinery garden rises from standardized planes. Flat steel plates are processed into cylindrical strokes traversing space, with round spheres swelling like breath at the ends of these pronounced metallic lines. These shapes, seeking to unfold the aesthetics of composition within three-dimensional space, expand from planes to lines and finally into larger dots, acquiring volume.
Individual modules, varying in their methods of assembly and balance of posture, transform into distinct geometric forms each time. In Horizontal Garden (2018), the straight lines forming the framework of the sculptures symbolize the linear urban landscape, while the protruding masses manifest as nonlinear variants—a pursuit of dazzling aesthetic appeal. The tightly clustered metallic ellipses in 57 Vertical Gardens (2024), referred to as “lumps of civilization,” organically merge straight lines and curves, swelling naturally as if dense pools form at the endpoints of pen strokes.
As standardized steel is reprocessed into curved forms, it loses its functionality as a component within the production system, gaining instead aesthetic value within a new structure. The flexibility of smooth curves allows rigid metal to evolve into richer three-dimensional forms. Flat surfaces expand into reflective volumes, and rigid straight lines bend into graceful arcs. The higher the curvature, the more expansively these forms reflect their surrounding landscapes.
Dynamic Interactions
A pair of modules, Two Collisions (2024), each bearing a weighty, rounded oval at their ends, form a low-floating rotational mechanism that hovers just above the floor. One body gleams with the silver sheen of stainless steel, while the other exudes a faint graphite-like luster, coated with a dark patina. These two forms glide along circular trajectories in opposite directions—one clockwise and the other counterclockwise. Resembling twin entities in different mineral hues, they continuously approach and retreat from one another, mirroring the endless interplay of day and night, perpetually influencing and coloring each other.
Watching their perpetual, untouched motion, one imagines two galaxies within a single gravitational field. After countless collisions and abrasions, these polished celestial bodies achieve equilibrium. What collides in the work is the imagined gravity between the two. The adhesive tension of forces, operating bi-directionally through precise mechanical structures, binds the separated forms into a cohesive entity. It evokes a network of relationships within a meticulously woven cosmic space—an immense blueprint where countless dots, lines, and planes intersect.
Byoungho KIM’s sculptural language delicately overlaps the principles of mechanical civilization and natural systems. The smallest units of sculpture, organically connected through artificial processes, form shapes like cells composing living organisms, creating complex landscapes akin to individuals forming communities. The trees within the machinery garden are reborn as three-dimensional forms that establish reciprocal relationships with the physical space outside the blueprint, each interacting uniquely with its surroundings.
Three-Dimensional Spatial Composition
A Section of the Garden (2024), a geometric composition of curved surfaces, highlights the element of planes. The sculpture’s body, constructed by meticulously bending thick metal sheets into varying curvatures, stands tall or reclines, metaphorically evoking natural landscapes. While the black-coated, leaf-shaped cross-sections emphasize sculptural form, the finely polished edges subtly reveal the material’s intrinsic qualities. The light streaming along the ridges of the forms intensifies sharply at the machined edges, gleaming like flashes.
323 Thorns (2024) showcases sharp golden spikes erupting from an interior rectangular core in all directions. The densely packed lines marking the surface fragment the space into intricate angles, while the inner polyhedron retreats into the shadows cast by the scattered golden lines. The initial planes sink into the depth axis, inaccessible both visually and tactilely.
In 9 Observations (2024), circular modules are aligned at regular intervals, presenting their side edges to reveal the thickness inflated into cone-like shapes. The nine large and small eyes reflect one another, producing varied reflective glows. At the exit, a coarse bronze mirror Seeing is Believing (2024) awaits. The sanded-down sections of the aged bronze, rid of its corroded texture, reveal the intermediate state of the metal between its pre- and post-processing phases. Only the polished center reflects the present like a mirror, recalling the pruned bonsai trees of the mechanical age.
Ambivalent Perspective
The design of the machinery garden is predicated on hypotheses from an inverted perspective, as external surfaces always precede internal structures. Rising from two-dimensional blueprints to three-dimensional volumes, Byoungho KIM’s sculptures embody a dualistic portrait of a materialistic society. The dazzling clusters of hundreds of points—“lumps of civilization”—express an ambivalent stance of both cynicism and admiration toward aesthetic desire. The process of exploring structures beneath their external surfaces traces the route by which the inevitable duality of this worldly beauty emerges. All value arises from the horizons of the present. Byoungho KIM's sculptures, seeking to wield a flexible aesthetic from rigid materials, reveal their own luminous volumes. As geometric projections of contemporaneity, they persuade viewers with the distinctive aesthetics of a processed world.