brilliant 30: Artist Kira Kim
Understanding people through engagement with art
![[brilliant 30] season 2 – “Kim Kira”](/upload/brand/view/V000030634/D000030637/P000034066_E000068359.jpg)
Q. What projects have you been working on most recently?
A. My current project seeks to reveal the social and cultural positions of individuals in contrast to the particular desires of the individual, and the collective. As an artist, I collaborate with many different experts from different genres. During this process, I maintain a focus on shared discourse through the concept of the "Floating Village". Different forms of art as a means for discourse can be divided into roughly three categories: reasoning, sharing, and appreciation. Through reasoning, an individual's private domain is opened to discourse; by sharing, an individual's private domain becomes public by means of contemporary art; lastly, appreciation signifies expansion and reproduction achieved by exposure and openness to the public domain.
Artists are more concerned with how something is seen, and much less with what is seen. - Kira Kim -
Q. What inspired you to work musically with Wi Jaeryang's poetry?
A. Wi Jaeryang is a poet and a retired sanitation worker who I had the pleasure of meeting during my year-long residency at Nanji Art Studio. He gave me the poetry book he wrote called 'Silently Chirping Bird'. I did not have high expectations of the book, but, reading it from cover to cover, I developed a strong empathy for Wi's bittersweet feelings towards society. I think that this connection was possible because he was able to face life in all its truth and desperation simultaneously as the family breadwinner, an individual person, a father and a son. He was a man of small stature and modest appearance, but between the stanzas I could sense his genuine nature and warm-heartedness. This inspired me to write music with the poetry. With the help of a film director and several rap artists, we created an album of six songs. We even considered staging a concert in the art museum.
Q. Any particular reason you choose to collaborate with rap artists?
A. I am currently collaborating with rap musicians ranging from first-generation hip-hop artists to more contemporary rap musicians, along with film director Kim Hyung Kyu. Hip-hop has always conveyed messages concerning social injustice and absurdity, an immoral and impersonal society, general polarization and marginalization, and the common good (善). These subcultural qualities within the genre led me to begin collaborating with rap musicians and artists in other genres, and to become involved in art movements. Even within a subculture, its members' lifestyles and perspectives on society define further sub-systems. It is important to note that subculture styles manifest a rich culture of challenge and emotion. I think rap and rhapsody best speak for this aspect of contemporary subcultures. The appearance of rap artists in this project was at first part of a larger experiment between myself and director Kim Hyung Kyu as we were lamenting and discussing the current state of society, culture, and government in Korea. As two individuals pondering a cultural movement of sorts, I was paying attention to the person and poetry of Wi Jaeryang and thinking about music that could accompany the poetry. Through collaboration with Kim Hyung Kyu, it became possible to liaise with rap musicians and this particular genre of music with its subcultural traits and spirit of resistance.
Q. What makes an artist?
A. From a macroscopic perspective, an artist might appear political or prejudiced. Some artists dealing with social issues are misunderstood as social activists — but artists are not activists, nor are they revolutionaries. I understand artists to be individuals who see things differently and share what they see with the audience as a way of communicating and developing their thoughts. The ideological issue, for instance, has multiple categories; recently, ideological capital has proved the most prominent. In thinking of capital, the artist has to consider where to direct their gaze within that ideology, how to perceive humanities, culture, and art in relation to it, and then what to do about it. That is why I think that for artists, how something is seen is far more important than what is seen. It is like the problem of looking to the right for a person seeing through the left eye. Political unification has never occurred, historically; but I believe cultural unification and empathy does exist. Cultural empathy and individual stories form the humanistic approach. In in summary, I believe artists are among those best-placed to attain common good (善). Furthermore, and for that reason, I see artists as activists and students who can instill genuine equality and freedom by continually challenging fixed ideas and biases inherent in our perspectives and attitudes.
Q. Based on that definition, how would you define art?
A. "Art" generally brings to mind ideas of beauty (美), but the definition of art is closer to the sublime than to mere beauty. By that, I mean inherently human traits such as humanity, instinct, and self-esteem. Without these, seeking beauty may be nothing more than the pursuit of ornament. So the question of what art can be is a question about what is sublime in the context of the here and now. Art is an acute awareness of illusion — the ability to discern what is actual amid the volatile and uncertain state of contemporary society. Art means perceiving this society from a broader perspective, being willing to burden oneself with those questions, and discovering answers to them. I think there is art in all of that. Based on this definition, contemporaneity is crucial to art. I might go so far as to say that art is posthumous humanism.
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Where Despair is A Luxury (feat. Analog Boy, Koonta of Rudepaper). 2015
Music & Video Directed by Kim Kira x Kim Hyungkyu
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Where Despair is A Luxury (feat. Analog Boy, Koonta of Rudepaper. 2015
Music & Video Directed by Kim Kira x Kim Hyungkyu
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Where Despair is A Luxury (feat. Analog Boy, Koonta of Rudepaper). 2015
Music & Video Directed by Kim Kira x Kim Hyungkyu
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Where We Live (feat. Choi Sam & Chailo). 2015
Music & Video Directed by Kim Kira x Kim Hyungkyu
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Love The Free Shit (feat. Issac Squab & DJ Skip). 2015
Music & Video Directed by Kim Kira x Kim Hyungkyu
Profile
Kira Kim earned his B.A. in Fine Art and M.A. in Environmental Sculpture at Kyungwon University (curr. Gachon University). Kim earned his MFA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College in London. He is an adjunct professor at Gachon University in the College of Arts and Design.
■ Selected Solo Exhibitions
<0.000Km> (alternative space LOOP, Seoul, Korea, 2002)
<Minority or Cosmopolitan> (+ Gallery, Nagoya, Japan, 2003)
<A Palace of Mirages> (King’s Lynn Arts Centre, Norfolk, UK, 2007)
<The Republic of Propaganda> (alternative space Loop, Seoul, Korea, 2008)
<Super Mega Factory> (Kukje Gallery, Seoul, Korea, 2009)
<Common Good_Climb Every Mountain!> (DOOSAN Art Centre, Seoul, Korea, 2011)
<Artist Lunchbox> (Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea, 2013)
<The Last Leaf> (KHVatec _Perigee Gallery and Hall, Seoul, Korea, 2014)
<2015 Korea Artist Prize> (MMCA Seoul, Korea, 2015)
■ Selected Group Exhibitions
<Trans-Dimensional Interesting Dynamics in New Korean Painting> (Karlin Hall, Prague, Czech Republic, 2009)
<City States – Media Landscape, Zone East Liverpool Biennale 2010> (Contemporary Urban Centre, Liverpool, England, 2010)
<Korean Rhapsody> (Samsung Leeum Museum, Seoul Korea, 2011)
<Transfer 2011-2012 Korea-NRW_Germany Kunsthalle Dusseldorf> (OSTHAUS Museum Hagen, Germany, Arko Art Center, Korea, 2011-2013)
<The Moment, We Awe> (Sanshang Contemporary Art Museum of Art, Hangzhou, China, 2014)
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