Wednesday, May 11, 2011

My Influence: Atta Kim

Creating a spiritual connection through photography involves knowledge of human philosophy, an acknowledgement of time, and the skills to utilize both these elements to synthesize a powerful singular moment that is resonant with audiences. Atta Kim’s work, through the present, shows a deliberation over the condition of being human from a uniquely eastern perspective. His dissection of philosophy portrays the search to a find the universal truth of human consciousness, preservation of the human body, and the search for the spirit that dwells within our physical constructions. Atta Kim’s artistic sojourn through these themes has created photographs that turn cities, streets, temples, and forests into exhibition spaces riddled with significant gravity. Although, Atta Kim has a myriad of exhibitions and galleries that embody these themes, this research paper will explore “The Museum Project” (1995-2002), and “ON-AIR” (2002- Present). This research paper aims to examine Atta Kim’s aforementioned projects to identify the extent to which his work pushes eastern philosophy, in specific Zen Buddhism, the themes of permanence in the bodies of humankind, and transience into a world without.


“The Museum Project” is an immense collection of work that represents a very personal exploration through the collection of humans in humanity. Commenting on this series Atta Kim stated in an interview with The Morning News, “The Museum Project is about creating my own private museum that displays very basic human elements—basic violence, sex, and ideology, etc.—in a clear glass box. Thus, if the museum is a place where the dead live forever, my museum is a place that lives forever with what is already alive.”(Pasulka). This element of the transparent acrylic box is interesting in that it both isolates and presents humanity within it. The Korean Times stated, “Their vulnerability is obvious in these situations, but because Kim treats these tableaux dispassionately the people in these photographs are a bit like furniture, more odd than disturbing.” There is definitely a thread of thought that would see this as alienation, but thinking about the device in relation to Atta Kim’s usage we get this symbol of preservation, and exposure.

The people within the glass boxes are alive and experiencing life, experiencing gravity and the pressure of acrylic transparency against their skin. Atta Kim even stated that to prepare for this project he would put himself in the box, “There is no separation between artist and model. I put myself inside the boxes and hang myself upside down before I shoot. My experience from the box is that these glass boxes are a big, dominating power.”(Pasulka). This “dominating” power I imagine is from the feeling of obscurity felt within a clear box, a kind of claustrophobia that emphasizes ones current existence. Lastly the fact that the people within the boxes are alive creates this emotion of dormancy, life captured, or life waiting to be released. The Korean Herald commented on the use of the acrylic installations as a way, “to dismantle the framework of social stereotypes to seize a true sense of liberty.” (Yong-shik). The exposure of the bodies reveal the meekness of reality, a reality that we are in control of, pushing the viewers to search for a way out of the “Museum” of history.
Despite what the roles of the bodies are within the photos, “the human body is still a vehicle of expression…”(Korean Herald). One sub-series within the project was titled “Nirvana,” capturing nude Buddhist Monks and Nuns in their daily rituals. The Buddhist monastery allowed for Atta Kim to proceed with this project because Atta Kim wanted to depict the purity of the Buddhist monks through the image of bare skin. Some of these utilize the glass box but others are simply styled in meditating positions with ritualistic mudras (hand symbols).

Another series titled “Salvation” depicted naked individuals tied to a cross with an IV in their arm, to show the relationship between blood and flesh in the Christian religion. Emotions of religion and the meaning of existence are put forth in these two series, showing a polarity between eastern and western philosophies, sacrifice in contrast to the search for enlightenment. (Harvis). However this part of the series was criticized as being a little “kitsch” by the New York Times, who criticized where Kim was going with these theatrical depictions. (Cotter). The naked bodies of the Buddhist monks however created a play between the sexual and the pure, where bodies that portray sex appear without an overriding gender.

Having dealt with the reality of people Atta Kim began to take on more prominent Buddhist ideologies in his next project ON-AIR. The series is renowned for Atta Kims usage of camera technology to capture time in a photo, David Grosz of the New York Sun commented on the project saying, “Either the [photos] are extended exposures that track the movement and disappearance of objects, or else they are composite images in which individuals are subsumed into a larger collective.”(Gorsz). The work seeks to eliminate/create images that depict the emptiness of reality, and the representation of human kind as a singular entity. In New York Atta Kim took eight hour shots, using a large format 8x10 Camera, of Times Square, Midtown Manhattan, Fifth Avenue, The Modern Museum of Art, Grand Central Station, and Park Avenue. These long exposures would also happen in France, China and Korea. In an introspective analysis the New York Sun stated, “In this haunting image, endurance and stillness become the very opposite of life, while evanescence and immateriality define the human condition.”


These long exposures captured the stillness of the structures in the cities but erased any tangible trace of humanity. One of the shots Kim wanted to take took seven years to get permission, the subject of the shot being the Demilitarized Zone between North Korea and South Korea. A place where there are always soldiers staring at each other from across the border, was captured in a photograph portraying peaceful stillness, “There are over 100,000 soldiers from South and North Korea facing each other across the DMZ line. Yet, the DMZ itself looks more peaceful than anywhere in this world.” (Pasulka).

The New York Times even stated that this picture was the “strongest” out of the series and yet the emptiest. Atta Kim took an hour long shot of a couple having sex which came out looking like a luminous ball of light, "Every individual is a big energy ball with great potential. You can't imagine how great each one of us is. It simply depends on how much you can express what you've got."(Korean Herald). Atta Kims words and technique in this photo results in a feeling of importance as an individual and as an element of energy on this earth.
In the 8 hour city collections, the emptiness in the photos depict the impermanence of life and links with the transcendent nature of Buddhism, showing the illusion of time in our reality. The blank cities and the wisps of color that remain prove that in time there is no time, and that reality is subjective to our experience. Another set of photos that Atta Kim took in this series focused on the interconnectedness of all things, relating to the Buddhist concept that in the end we all are one. By over laying images of 100 different Korean men Atta Kim created a portrait of the Korean man. This series of work however intricately placed within the spectrum of Buddhist unity, was criticized for being “gimmicky” by the New York Sun, "ON-AIR Project: The Last Supper" (2003), for example, uses composite portraits to make the trite observation that there's a bit of Jesus and a bit of Judas in each of us.”(Gorsz). Atta Kim has gone on to do this process with men of millions of different ethnicities and even with places. In the series titled “Indallah” Atta Kim combined 10,000 photos of every major city in the world and merged them all together. The image came out as a grey mesh which Atta commented on saying, “the void is not emptiness, but is actually everything.”(Korean Herald). This image creates communication with Buddhist notions of the one universe, which is in relation to the idea of one identity, combined becoming simple just the concept of completion as one whole.
Another part of this work involved the documentation of ice melting through both a series of shots and long exposures; this series was titled “Monologue of Ice.” The documentation of the ice melting and the segments of time create this sense of the elimination of all things, and the return of all things to a malleable element. Atta Kim created an ice figure of Chairman Mao and photographed the ice figure until it became a smooth thinning sphere balancing on a thin neck of ice. This process has been repeated but with models of the Eygptian Pyramids, the Qin Dynasty terracotta army, and the Greek Parthenon. Each melting ice figures represents the passing of humanities creations, and baits the audience into both the horror of the destruction of mankind’s achievements, and lulls acceptance of extinction, through the calm of water. In New York, Atta Kim held an event where an ice Buddha was created and allowed to be seen, and touched, by the public as it slowly melted away. Atta Kim stated, “Human beings disappear in a moment, but you can't see it happen. Ice also disappears in a moment, but at a speed we can observe.”(Akers). Atta Kim uses ice as a metaphor for the way in which eastern philosophies approach death as a return and transcendence. The water that is left over evaporates into our environment harkening Buddhism, achieving enlightenment and returning to the one.
Atta Kim has been working as an artistic photographer since the 1980’s having completed 17 solo exhibitions and over 60 group exhibitions. The introduction of eastern concepts through photograph is a powerful tool that postures thought on the course of humanity and what our place in time is. Atta Kim sought to preserve life, erase life, unite life, and dissolve life through these various works, creating a commentary on the short life span that human beings have on earth and in the scope of the universe.

1 comment:

  1. My sources

    Pasulka, Nicole. "The Museum Project." The Morning News.com. The Morning News, 7 Aug. 2006. Web. 04 May 2011. .
    Grosz, David. "Illustrating the Transience of Individual Identity." The New York Sun [New York] 15 June 2006, Arts & Letters sec.: 17+. Print.
    Havis, Richard J. "Every Second Counts for Past, Present and Future Mystical Images." The South China Post 2 July 2006, Features sec.: 8. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 4 May 2011. .
    Yong-shik, Chong. "Reformist Artists Display New Spectrum: ArtSpectrum 2001 Features 9 Up-and-coming Contemporary Artists at Ho-Am." The Korean Herald 15 Dec. 2001. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 4 May 2011. .
    Cotter, Holland. "In Atta Kim’s Long-Exposure Photographs, Real Time Is the Most Surreal of All - New York Times." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. The New York Times Company, 12 July 2006. Web. 04 May 2011. .
    Akers, W.m. "At the Rubin: As Atta Kim's Buddha Melts, Vodka Flows | The New York Observer." Observer.com - New York Politics, Media News, Real Estate, Fashion, Gossip, Movies, Books, Theater, and the Arts | The New York Observer. The New York Oberserver LLC, 29 Mar. 2011. Web. 04 May 2011. .
    "The Body Not So Beautiful at Rodin Gallery." Korean Times [Seoul] 3 Dec. 2002. LexisNexis Academic. Web. .
    “Atta Kim to Hold Show in Venice." The Korean Herald 19 Feb. 2009. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 4 May 2011.
    "Yossi Milo Gallery - Exhibitions - Atta Kim." Yossi Milo Gallery - Exhibitions - Yuki Onodera. 26 June 2006. Web. 04 May 2011. .

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