London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

Of The Outer World at I-MYU

Duck Yong Kim: A Boy, Mixed media on wood, 46x88cmOf The Outer World
10 — 29 April 2008

Zadok Ben-David / Duck Yong Kim

Tuesday-Saturday 12-6pm or by appointment

I-MYU-Projects is pleased to announce Of The Outer World, the fifth exhibition at its Charlotte Road gallery. Bringing together the work of British-Israeli artist, Zadok Ben-David with that of Korean artist Duck Yong Kim, the show draws on two worlds of a very different order. Marked between these radically different outcomes are propositions of slowness, of poetic order and detailed observation. Of the Outer World touches at the margins of perception, it makes us aware that our connection to the spaces that we inhabit, physically and psychologically, are often abstract in structure, and that often what we register is precisely what we recognise from within ourselves. To this end the work of Zadok Ben-David and Duck Yong Kim offer us surprisingly different readings of a world in which we are constantly required to adjust our actions and alter our perceptions, showing us that the outcomes of mankind are often the outcomes of nature.

Zadok Ben-David presents a new large-scale floor-based installation (below) that includes both figures and birds. The shifting scale of the silhouetted figures marked out on a terrain of white sand cut sharply against the two point perspective of the birds, seen from one side in the full glory of their colourful regalia, while from the other seen simply as flat blank shadow. The figures that are interspersed between the birds, both domestic and exotic, are voyeurs, tourists and observers, animated characters, crouching, running and taking photographs, in enigmatically posing within the wonderland of the sand strewn landscape. Ben David’s work carries a calm poetic, an excitement of possibility made manifest between man, beast and nature, while the white sand on which the miniature upright sculptures stand offers a sanctity, and an infinity of perfectly imperfect repetition.

Zadok Ben David: Trouble in the Square

Duck Yong Kim explores the contemporary mechanics of Korea’s society, infusing traditional materials with a layered language of imagery and iconography that echo the country’s roots within a time of fast moving change. The visual pace of Duck Yong Kim’s work is measured and laboured, its exactness reflects that of time-based change, its transience informing a shift from one generation to another, from an old to a new history. The works hint at peripheral and undisclosed narratives, a bird whispers into the ear of a boy (top), a woman bows, they are works of precise order, captivating in beauty, leaving nature to be played-out within an arena of human emotion.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.