Mobile Landscape: Kim Jongku Artist Project

This February, Seoul-based artist Kim Jongku will come to Lawrence to create a site-specific installation in the Electronic Media Gallery. Funded by the William T. Kemper Foundation, this two-week residency is part of a larger initiative at the Spencer to create a vibrant International Artists-in-Residence Program that connects artists from around the world with the broader intellectual life of the University of Kansas.

For this residency, Kim will create a Mobile Landscape. Working with black steel powder, Kim “writes” poetic inscriptions on the floor of a pristine, white environment. Then, using closed circuit cameras positioned on the floor, he broadcasts the constructed vistas. The result evokes the appearance of traditional Korean ink-and-brush painting; however, the scale is inverted—a shoe now dwarfs a mountain. As part of the project, the Spencer is exploring the possibility of broadcasting gallery live feeds to a variety of campus and off-site locations in Lawrence.

Kim Jongku was born 1963 in Choong Nam, South Korea. He graduated with a BFA. from Seoul National University in 1993 and an MFA from Chelsea College of Art and Design, London, in 1996. Kim has exhibited widely in Europe and Asia, including the Gwangju Biennale (2006), Re-Imagining Asia, Berlin (2007), and solo exhibitions at One and J. Gallery, Seoul, Korea. Kim currently teaches in the Department of Sculpture at Ewha Women’s University in Seoul.