Rumor has it that artist Miru Kim will unveil her long-awaited “Pig” project in March of next year. Kim has kept hush-hush on the particulars of the work, so that little has been publicly revealed beyond the sliver of an image at www.mirukim.com of pink porkers crowding subway tracks. Perhaps she will spotlight the wild denizens of post-industrial environments? In her own words, the upcoming exhibition “might be a little too controversial.” Precipitate hopes to bring readers the full scoop in a near-future issue; nevertheless, I don’t recommend animal rights activists hold their breaths until then.
Kim is widely known for her “Naked City Spleen” series, in which a nude female explores/meditates upon/stalks decaying or forgotten landscapes.
Criticism of “Naked City Spleen” argues that Kim relies on the tireless naked-woman-in-nature trope and therefore reinforces the construct of women as body or “natural.” According to her 2008 TED lecture, Kim chose to bare all so that her “fictional” subject would avoid cultural implications and time-specific elements, desiring a “simple way to represent a living body inhabiting these decaying … spaces.” But as critic Paddy Johnson of Art Fag City reminds, such a gesture “willfully disregards a long history of the nude in Western art making.”
Or does it?
The argument could be made that by shooting in post-industrial urban spaces, Miru Kim complicates the woman/nature trope by dropping femaleness from Team Growth and Fertility and trading her to Team Loss and Decay. Moreover, Miru Kim photographs herself naked, yes, but her character acts as a subject in action, not an object acted upon, consequently becoming the timeless wanderer that the artist aims to create.
Traipsing through places that can no longer be experienced in their former manner, Kim’s solitary figure transforms the old, the ruined, and the once public into a newly-discovered world—one that characterizes freedom in isolation, and so is hers alone. Taking also into account that few are willing to illegally trespass, climb towering bridges, or venture into noxious sewers wearing a gas mask in order to achieve their vision, it’s safe to say that Miru Kim doesn’t explore places other artists choose not to explore but places they can’t.
Daniel Keltner, Editor