Kim Joon, one of Korea's most notable young contemporary artists, presents digital prints from his newest series, Blue Jean Blues. Kim's work, featured on the cover of the book Korean Eye (Skira, 2009), which accompanied a show of contemporary Korean art at the Saatchi Gallery in London, is at the forefront of the new-media movement.
Kim, who is based in Seoul, Korea, explores themes of desire, memory and youth using porcelain as his digital medium. He fabricates compositions out of tableware, fragments of idealized nudes, and icons of Western pop culture, including guitars, cars and guns. Continuing his mastery of the computer software 3D Studio Max, Kim coats the white backgrounds and surfaces of objects with pop-culture imagery. He successfully juxtaposes old and new, traditional Asian motifs and new media.
Reality and fantasy collide as blue jeans take on a life of their own and inhabit their virtual surroundings—perching on an oversized guitar in Blue Jean Blues – Jimi Hendrix and a classic car in Blue Jean Blues – Rebel without a Cause—alluding to society’s desire for material objects as well as nostalgic obsessions and attachments. The cultural symbolism associated with jeans is also the artist’s lament for the fading memory of his social resistance—expressed in earlier work through a fascination with tattoos.
In addition to works from the Blue Jean Blues series, works from Kim’s Drunken and Golden Hour series will also be on view.
Kim Joon was born in 1966 in Seoul, Korea. He has exhibited his work at the Total Museum, Seoul, Korea; The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Kwachon, Korea; the Gwangju Biennale, Korea; the National Taiwan Museum; Canvas International Art gallery, Amsterdam; Alexander Ochs Galleries, Berlin; Gallery Hyundai, Paris; Sabina Lee gallery, Los Angeles; Walsh Gallery, Chicago; the Saatchi Gallery, London; and Sundaram Tagore Gallery, Hong Kong, New York, and Beverly Hills.
