김기용 최 이사벨
From a sink of soaking dishes, you hold up a gleaming saucepan to scrub; the surface against the sponge feels round and smooth as your hand glides along the side. Waiting in front of the elevator, you catch a diffused reflection against the brushed metal doors. On the subway to work, you firmly grip the polished handrail for balance. It feels cold to the touch; it feels solid. Steel — it is ubiquitous in our daily lives and an integral component in many industries, such as transportation and modern construction. This was the functional relationship Kim Kiyong had with the synthetic metal during his decade-long tenure at an ironworks. Amid the blast furnaces and casting equipment, he was compelled by steel structures and the versatility of their forms, which set the ground for his formative years as a metal sculptor. Kim’s background in the arts began at Yeongnam University in 1986, where he studied Asian painting. Upon graduation Kim struggled with his identity as a painter; he poignantly stated, “I grabbed a brush and stood in front of a sheet of hanji. My mind turned blank and I realized that what I learned and felt were not my thoughts but those of others.” Kim experimented in folk art and engaged in the transformative Minjung art movement through its development into postmodernism. To support himself, Kim took on various work in outdoor commercial installations before landing among factory steel plates and welding rods. After a 17-year hiatus, Kim had re-emerged to explore his artistry and technical dexterity. Today, moulding his own philosophy, Kim strips his medium of its industrial purpose into abstraction with hand-crafted texture, often representing his connection to the environment around him. This is playfully shown in Kim’s latest series, “Meltdown,” where he uses an arrangement of fundamental forms — prominently featuring intertwined and layered rings of varying scale that are drenched in metallic lustre. In “Meltdown” (page 17), the geometric figures overlap one another, vying for the viewer’s attention in a reminiscent manner of Kandinsky’s transcending, non-objective paintings. There is an allusion of airiness and the sculpture appears to be floating — though not above the will of gravity as melted steel drips toward the ground. Movement is inferred yet suspended in time, indicated by the tail of the dense drippings as they meld at the base. The irony does not escape the viewer: the fabricated liquidity created by molten metal — a nod to his method — is still cold to the touch.
