Seongsan Art Hall

Myong Hi Kim, Han River 12 Zodiac Effigy Mound Project, 2003, oil pastel on chalkboard 240 × 120 cm

Myong Hi Kim’s Han River 12 Zodiac Effigy Mound Project is an abstract map of the city refracted through the lens of the Biennale, as well as an important clue to the spatial perspectives in play. For Kim, who has been traveling the globe for many years while pursuing her practice, the blackboard both maps the land she draws on and serves as a parchment upon which to write out her memories. On the grid-patterned board, the Hangang River winds its way across Seoul. The twelve zodiac animal-shaped works around it are conceptual drawings for a hypothetical project in which hills in the shape of the twelve zodiac deities would be installed along the banks of the Hangang River, each hill coming in at 150 meters long and 30 meters high. Kim drew inspiration for this piece from ancient earth art she encountered in the Americas, along the banks of the Ohio River.

 

Seongsan Art Hall

Myong Hi Kim, Deer Eye View of Seoul, 2024, oil pastel on chalkboard, 183 × 122 cm

Kim’s new work, Deer Eye View of Seoul, is a night view of the Han River from the perspective of a deer in the black night sky. Through the figure of the deer, a symbol of the nomadic herds that wandered across Eurasia, the artist attempts to illustrate the idea of nomadic human existence through metaphorical and symbolic transference. The animal images in the painting date from the 7th to 10th centuries BC and were excavated in Eastern Europe. The twinkling stars in the night sky and the eyes of the deer together remind us of the artifacts and earth found at Seongsan Shell Mound.