Sung Hwan Kim: Protected by roof and right-hand muscles

Over the past two decades, artist Sung Hwan Kim has produced lyrical multimedia installations and performances that merge the mythological and the everyday, with music—namely his collaboration with musician and composer David Michael DiGregorio (aka dogr)—critical to all. Protected by roof and right-hand muscles carries with it the artist’s tendency to situate his working-through of large concepts in the domestic sphere and with self-reflection. 

At the Van Abbemuseum, Kim takes the role of artist and exhibition designer and rearranges key film environments and performances from works that poetically navigate and contextualize ideas around borders. Discussions on boundaries within the institution, for example, have led the artist to introduce thresholds that carry us from one room to the next while holding the space for the in-between. The emphasis on height (visual and physical), texture (same objects in different materials), trajectory (within each work and room to room), and drama (absence and presence of light) abstracts reality, inviting the viewer to seek their own sensory interpretations of the film environments. 

True to his form, Kim also assumes the position of storyteller in the exhibition to interpret history through the senses and embody and distil things that seem inexpressible. Folklore, myth, and gossip are portals through which to enter his layered installations where feelings are reliable sources for understanding the world. Through his distinctive method of intertwining video, music, storytelling, and sculpture within the gallery space, Kim has developed a unique narrative approach to migration, immigration, translation, and regeneration. At the Van Abbemuseum this is especially felt given Eindhoven’s rich migration story since the city’s industrialization in the late nineteenth-century and need for guest workers at Philips, and the countless knowledge workers over the years.

Each of the  galleries in the exhibition consists of a key video work by Kim, along with drawings and installations that interact with it in customized architectural environments. Eight film installations express the breadth of his practice: from his early series in the room (2006–12) to his most recent series, A Record of Drifting Across the Sea (2017–), which investigates the twentieth-century move of undocumented Korean people to the US by way of Hawai‘i and includes the works Hair is a piece of head (2021) and By Mary Jo Freshley (2023), which premiered at the Van Abbemuseum.

“How does one care about the trouble beyond their national border, let alone the border of one’s skin?,” asks Kim, noting “identity is about how people approach boundary.” Yet the exhibition is not “about” the identity of subjects within the films, nor is it entirely autobiographical. Instead, Kim takes his reflection into his artistic production, recognizing the gap between subjectivities instead of talking about the “other.” Kim’s practice is collaborative, involving many of the same people, chiefly his niece Yoon Jin Kim who you can see grow up across the films From the commanding heights… (2007), Washing Brain and Corn (2010), and Love before Bond (2017). 

Curated by Yolande Zola Zoli van der Heide.
Exhibition design: Sung Hwan Kim 
Production and presentation: Antoine Derksen
Installation and technical coordination: Diederik Koppelmans
Project engineer: Benno Hartjes
Installation team: Gijs Blankers, Matthieu Brekelmans, Stef van den Dungen, Perry van Duijnhoven, Ron Eijkman, Tom Frencken, Bart van Geldrop, Mark van der Gronden, Benno Hartjes, Paul Heijnen, Donghwan Kam, Sander Kunst, Sjoerd van Lankveld, Bram Mijnders, Angelo Schumacher, Leon Vos, Jeroen Vrijsen 
Intern: Chongjin Chen
Assistant curator and production: Chala Itai Westerman
Registrar: Angeliki Petropoulos with Suin Kwon
Fundraising: Samantha Hoekema, Merel Schrijvers
Communication and marketing: Maud Bongers, Kelly Hamers, Otis Dirk Overdijk
Mediation and education: Glenda Pattipeilohy, Yda Sinaij, Olivia Vergeer

The exhibition is developed in partnership with Framer Framed, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany; and Art Sonje Center, Seoul, South Korea.