Sang Woo Kim: The Seer, The Seen | Herald Street
This exhibition is hosted by one of London’s more aloof gallery spaces, accessed via an unmarked doorway in an unpromising building in Bethnal Green. This past weekend, it was more singular still; the other galleries in the district were all in on the annual Condo festival, and were full of people as a result. This one was empty. The gallery didn’t participate in Condo. All of which seemed suitable for the work it had on show.
The Fold 002 (2024)
Sang Woo Kim paints self-portraits which are, in a word, avoidant. They are always brutally cropped, by aluminium box frames. They generally show the artist’s eyes - or an eye. Never the full face, let alone any suggestion of a body.
It’s tempting to say this avoidance is a response to Kim’s own backstory. He’s worked as a fashion model. “I’ve always tried to avoid myself in my work,” he’s said. “I guess my job entailed… how I looked. I wanted to shy away from that.” The withholding-ness of the portraits seems to be a reaction to their artist’s own body being commoditised by others - for the enjoyment of others.
On the basis of the works on show, you can’t even tell if the subject is good-looking, so brutal is the cropping. (Of course, in real life Kim is really, really good looking. And it’s an open question whether this behind-the-scenes pretty privilege made the show happen in the first place.)
Closer 010 (2024)
Either way, Kim’s a portraitist of considerable skill. One particularly fine example is pictured above, in night shades of green. Note the single casual white trail around his eye, giving it life.
Beyond the surface-level craft are deeper resonances. Let’s go back to Kim’s repeated emphasis on the eye. There are a few multi-part pigment transfer works to complement the self portraits: a collection of images of eyes and glasses. In one, the subject has their eyes forcibly opened by a surgical speculum. On closer inspection, we realise these images, taken by Kim from online forums and social media, generally show white subjects.
In the self portraits, while Kim crops away most of his face, he always portrays, with exacting, relentless brush strokes, his epicanthic folds. This is a natural feature for many east Asians that is sometimes surgerized away - thanks mainly to oppressive (white) beauty standards.
The titles of the works focussing on Kim’s eyes are all the same: The Fold. In such a way, the artist asserts something more complicated and resonant about society - beyond all his self-effacing avoidance.
Sang Woo Kim: The Seer, The Seen is at Herald Street (London). 14 November 2024 - 01 February 2025