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<\/div>\n\u300aTo Them, with Honor\u300b\u00a0 Installation View (1)<\/em><\/div>\n
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Born in Busan in 1945, Kim has spent more than half a century pioneering a unique trajectory within Korean contemporary art, working across painting, sculpture, objects, and installation. Through series such asScrap,Book,Finger, andSpeech Bubble, he has examined human consciousness, civilization, and the excess and emptiness of contemporary imagery. This exhibition showcases the breadth of his practice, focusing particularly on his recent series Artistic DNA and To Them, With Honor.<\/div>\n
The exhibition reflects the artist\u2019s renewed contemplation of his position within the lineage of art history, while exploring the possibility of art being reborn from fragments. Emphasizing the intersection of \u201chorizontal and vertical thinking,\u201d Kim extends his long-standing visual language by intertwining his own artistic vocabulary with traces of the great masters. To Them, With Honorserves as both a tribute to the past and a question toward the future\u2014inviting viewers to consider what artistic DNA we inherit, and how it may be passed on to the next generation.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/static-edge.kiaf.org\/web\/2025\/12\/18154733\/Jungmyung-Kim_To-Them-with-Honor_Installation-View-2.jpg\")
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<\/div>\n\u300aTo Them, with Honor\u300b\u00a0 Installation View (2)<\/em><\/div>\n
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To Them, With Honor \u2013 An Artistic Lineage Reborn from Fragments<\/em>
\nBorn in Busan in 1945, Kim Jung Myung has shaped a significant trajectory within Korean contemporary art for more than half a century. Early on, he adopted boundary-crossing experimentation\u2014moving freely between painting, sculpture, objects, and installation\u2014as his core artistic language. Beginning with theScrapandRed (Bbal)series of the mid-1970s, and continuing throughFrame and Canvas, Calendar, Book, Finger, Dinosaur, Tongue, Bone, Pocket, Speech Bubble, and Big Head, Kim has constructed a visual world that navigates the space between everyday objects, cartoon-like symbols, history and myth, education and play. His work consistently poses the subtle yet incisive question: How do we perceive, speak about, and remember the world?<\/div>\n
\nBorn in Busan in 1945, Kim Jung Myung has shaped a significant trajectory within Korean contemporary art for more than half a century. Early on, he adopted boundary-crossing experimentation\u2014moving freely between painting, sculpture, objects, and installation\u2014as his core artistic language. Beginning with theScrapandRed (Bbal)series of the mid-1970s, and continuing throughFrame and Canvas, Calendar, Book, Finger, Dinosaur, Tongue, Bone, Pocket, Speech Bubble, and Big Head, Kim has constructed a visual world that navigates the space between everyday objects, cartoon-like symbols, history and myth, education and play. His work consistently poses the subtle yet incisive question: How do we perceive, speak about, and remember the world?<\/div>\n
Having studied sculpture at Hongik University and art education at Keimyung University, Kim served as a professor at Pusan National University from 1982 to 2008. His decades as an artist, educator, and researcher have accumulated into the layered conceptual depth found throughout his oeuvre. This solo exhibition,To Them, With Honor, highlights the most recent chapters of his artistic path\u2014Artistic DNA(2021\u2013 ) and To Them, With Honor(2023\u2013 )\u2014presenting his painting, sculptural, and installation works together. Rooted in his long-held belief that \u201cpainting ultimately reflects the spirit of its time\u201d and that one must \u201cnever become the same as others,\u201d this exhibition signifies the artist\u2019s desire to situate his practice within a broader lineage of art history.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/static-edge.kiaf.org\/web\/2025\/12\/18154734\/Jungmyung-Kim_To-Them-with-Honor_Installation-View-3.jpg\")
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<\/div>\n\u300aTo Them, with Honor\u300b\u00a0 Installation View (3)<\/em><\/div>\n
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Artistic DNA Found in Broken Paint<\/em>
\nThe starting point of this exhibition unexpectedly emerged from what could be called an accident. One day, a large acrylic work fell and shattered. Looking into the fragments, the artist recalled traces of Kandinsky, Pollock, Matisse, Picasso, and Monet. He describes seeing \u201cthe DNA of artists\u201d in the tiny paint chips\u2014no longer mere debris, but \u201cprecious jewels of spirit\u201d embodying condensed histories of aesthetics, experimentation, and failure.
\nThe Artistic DNA series (2021\u2013 ) begins precisely here. By attaching heads and tails to paint fragments and arranging them to float like living organisms on glass, Kim transcends material manipulation, visually articulating the idea that art can be reborn into another life. The paint is no longer a tool for making a painting, but a being that speaks in its own form. As he states, these fragments become \u201cpriceless jewels of spirit.\u201d
\nThis attitude resonates with the civilizational critique embedded throughout Kim\u2019s earlier works. In series such asBook,Finger,Speech Bubble, andBig Head, he has illuminated the emptiness and tension produced by an excess of knowledge, information, and imagery. In Artistic DNA, the critical perspective condenses into the form of \u201cfragments,\u201d from which a new generative energy emerges\u2014offering his most fundamental answer to the question: What comes after critique?<\/div>\n
\nThe starting point of this exhibition unexpectedly emerged from what could be called an accident. One day, a large acrylic work fell and shattered. Looking into the fragments, the artist recalled traces of Kandinsky, Pollock, Matisse, Picasso, and Monet. He describes seeing \u201cthe DNA of artists\u201d in the tiny paint chips\u2014no longer mere debris, but \u201cprecious jewels of spirit\u201d embodying condensed histories of aesthetics, experimentation, and failure.
\nThe Artistic DNA series (2021\u2013 ) begins precisely here. By attaching heads and tails to paint fragments and arranging them to float like living organisms on glass, Kim transcends material manipulation, visually articulating the idea that art can be reborn into another life. The paint is no longer a tool for making a painting, but a being that speaks in its own form. As he states, these fragments become \u201cpriceless jewels of spirit.\u201d
\nThis attitude resonates with the civilizational critique embedded throughout Kim\u2019s earlier works. In series such asBook,Finger,Speech Bubble, andBig Head, he has illuminated the emptiness and tension produced by an excess of knowledge, information, and imagery. In Artistic DNA, the critical perspective condenses into the form of \u201cfragments,\u201d from which a new generative energy emerges\u2014offering his most fundamental answer to the question: What comes after critique?<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/static-edge.kiaf.org\/web\/2025\/12\/18154735\/Jungmyung-Kim_To-Them-with-Honor_Installation-View-4.jpg\")
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<\/div>\n\u300aTo Them, with Honor\u300b\u00a0 Installation View (4)<\/em><\/div>\n
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Dialogue with Masterpieces: To Them, With Honor<\/em>
\nBeginning in 2021, the Energy Communion series introduced a method of wrinkling printed masterpieces to create relief-like surfaces, overlaying them with glass, and allowing paint to flow across and beneath these layers. Rather than reproducing or parodying the originals, Kim sought to construct a site where images and materials collide, forming tension and communion across time.
\nTo Them, With Honor(2023\u2013 ) intensifies this approach. Portraits, works, and symbolic elements from Warhol, Basquiat, Picasso, Monet, and Manet merge with Kim\u2019s own color sensibility, forms, and the energetic materiality of paint fragments to generate a new kind of sculptural painting.
\nRecalling the portraits of saints and sages that hung in his childhood home, along with the musicians and writers whose images covered his room during his youth, the artist asks:
\n\u201cWhy did I never display the images of the artists who influenced me the most?\u201d
\nHis lifelong insistence on originality and aversion to imitation once made such gestures impossible. Yet now, beyond the distancing of his younger years, he acknowledges a sense of \u201cdebt\u201d and \u201cgratitude\u201d\u2014a realization that forms the foundation of this series. It is not simple homage, but a declaration that \u201cI, too, stand at one end of this lineage,\u201d and an admission that art lives only through relationships with others.<\/div>\n
\nBeginning in 2021, the Energy Communion series introduced a method of wrinkling printed masterpieces to create relief-like surfaces, overlaying them with glass, and allowing paint to flow across and beneath these layers. Rather than reproducing or parodying the originals, Kim sought to construct a site where images and materials collide, forming tension and communion across time.
\nTo Them, With Honor(2023\u2013 ) intensifies this approach. Portraits, works, and symbolic elements from Warhol, Basquiat, Picasso, Monet, and Manet merge with Kim\u2019s own color sensibility, forms, and the energetic materiality of paint fragments to generate a new kind of sculptural painting.
\nRecalling the portraits of saints and sages that hung in his childhood home, along with the musicians and writers whose images covered his room during his youth, the artist asks:
\n\u201cWhy did I never display the images of the artists who influenced me the most?\u201d
\nHis lifelong insistence on originality and aversion to imitation once made such gestures impossible. Yet now, beyond the distancing of his younger years, he acknowledges a sense of \u201cdebt\u201d and \u201cgratitude\u201d\u2014a realization that forms the foundation of this series. It is not simple homage, but a declaration that \u201cI, too, stand at one end of this lineage,\u201d and an admission that art lives only through relationships with others.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/static-edge.kiaf.org\/web\/2025\/12\/18154736\/%EA%B7%B8%EB%93%A4%EC%97%90%EA%B2%8C-%EA%B2%BD%EC%9D%98%EB%A5%BC%EC%8B%9C%EB%A6%AC%EC%A6%88-%EC%A4%91-%EC%9D%BC%EB%B6%80-2023-2025.png\")
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<\/div>\nJungmyung KIM, To Them, with Honor (Part of a series), 2023-2025<\/em><\/div>\n
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The Place Where Horizontal and Vertical Thought Intersect<\/em>
\nKim often tells his students that one must see the world where \u201chorizontal and vertical thinking intersect.\u201d If horizontal thinking reflects contemporary visual culture and lived context, vertical thinking refers to the deeper axis of art history, intellectual history, and philosophy. This exhibition captures the rare moment where these two axes meet.
\nFragments and masterpieces, paint and printed images, historical figures and present viewers, flatness and dimensionality continually intersect. Positioned as a mediator linking past, present, and future, the artist asks how the energy of art can be carried forward. In this sense, the exhibition is retrospective, current, and forward-looking all at once. Here, \u201chonor\u201d is not simply a gesture toward the past, but a declaration of the creative act itself\u2014lifting fragments to give them new life.<\/div>\n
\nKim often tells his students that one must see the world where \u201chorizontal and vertical thinking intersect.\u201d If horizontal thinking reflects contemporary visual culture and lived context, vertical thinking refers to the deeper axis of art history, intellectual history, and philosophy. This exhibition captures the rare moment where these two axes meet.
\nFragments and masterpieces, paint and printed images, historical figures and present viewers, flatness and dimensionality continually intersect. Positioned as a mediator linking past, present, and future, the artist asks how the energy of art can be carried forward. In this sense, the exhibition is retrospective, current, and forward-looking all at once. Here, \u201chonor\u201d is not simply a gesture toward the past, but a declaration of the creative act itself\u2014lifting fragments to give them new life.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/static-edge.kiaf.org\/web\/2025\/12\/18154737\/%EC%8D%B8%EB%84%A4%EC%9D%BC%EC%9D%B4%EB%AF%B8%EC%A7%80_Jungmyung-Kim_To-Them-with-Honor_Installation-View.jpg\")
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<\/div>\n\u300aTo Them, with Honor\u300b\u00a0 Installation View (5)<\/em><\/div>\n
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Conclusion<\/em>
\nRooted in Busan yet reaching across eras and disciplines, Kim Jung Myung reveals in this exhibition the private lineage of predecessors, mentors, and contemporaries who have shaped his artistic language.To Them, With Honoris both a bow to the past and a question toward the future. What should art inherit, what should it abandon, and what must it newly generate? Just as the artist discovered in the fragments of paint, perhaps within the most ordinary remnants lie dormant artistic DNA. This exhibition seeks to awaken those hidden strands and invites each of us to reconsider: To whom do we offer our honor?<\/div>\n
\nRooted in Busan yet reaching across eras and disciplines, Kim Jung Myung reveals in this exhibition the private lineage of predecessors, mentors, and contemporaries who have shaped his artistic language.To Them, With Honoris both a bow to the past and a question toward the future. What should art inherit, what should it abandon, and what must it newly generate? Just as the artist discovered in the fragments of paint, perhaps within the most ordinary remnants lie dormant artistic DNA. This exhibition seeks to awaken those hidden strands and invites each of us to reconsider: To whom do we offer our honor?<\/div>\n
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\/ Jeongwon KIM (Gallerist \/ Gallery MAC), 2025<\/div>\n
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GALLERY MAC<\/div>\n
2F, 162 Dalmaji-gil 117-beon Na-gil, Haeundae-gu, Busan, 48115, South Korea<\/div>\n
+82 51-722-2201<\/div>\n
WEBSITE<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0INSTAGRAM<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Youtube<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Artsy<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","categories":[50,51],"class_list":["post-57385","insights","type-insights","status-publish","hentry","category-insight","category-stories"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.0","language":"en","enabled_languages":["ko","en"],"languages":{"ko":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kiaf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/insights\/57385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kiaf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/insights"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kiaf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/insights"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kiaf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kiaf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}