Beom Kim  

b. 1963, born and based in Seoul, Korea

After the studies at Seoul National University and several group shows in Seoul, Kim continued his study of painting at the SVA(School of Visual Arts) and NYU(New York University) in New York. Taking small anecdotes or trivial objects from everyday life, he slightly transforms and recreates them with handicraftship into an artifact. The objects that have undergone Kim’s transformation reveal the gap between visual perception, individual cognition and social knowledge. For example, the pregnant hammer, the kettle functioning as a radio and the arm and fist mimicking the silhouette of a swan, expose the fallacy of our preconception and ways of thinking, and ultimately subvert a socially educated system of values. His works offer great pleasure to see, having both qualities from reality and imagination, criticism and joke. This is why Kim is said to be a traditional sculptor trained in the academy on a fundamental level, in spite of his diverse oeuvres including videos, book projects and drawings.

The Art of Transforming(1997) is a how-to guide book project that teaches us to transform ourselves into a tree, a panther, a door, and even an air conditioner. Hometown(1998), introduced as English edition in this Biennale, imagines a very probable but fake “hometown.” In these book projects, Kim utilizes his allegorical concepts which cleverly go back and forth between reality and imagination to write an easy manual book for contemporary urbanites.

- Beom Kim, An Iron in the form of a Radio, a Kettle in the form of an Iron, and a Radio in the form of a Kettle, 2002,
- parts of kettle, radio, iron and other mixed media, dimensions variable, Collection of National Museum of Contemporary Art,

-  Kwachon, Korea

- Beom Kim, Untitled (A Job on the Horizon), 2005, broom, 21x17x164cm m

- Beom Kim, Swan, 2004, foam, wood, motor, screw, RC receiver, etc., 70x75x30cm