Atta Kim (born 1956) is a South Korean photographer who has been active since the mid-1980s. He has exhibited his work internationally and was the first photographer chosen to represent South Korea in the São Paulo Biennial.
His early works were black and white portraits of subjects including psychiatric patients, individuals designated as "cultural assets" by the Korean government, and his own family. His later and most notable series of works have been exhibited as full color, large scale prints: The Museum Project, which depicts people "preserved" within Plexiglas cases placed in various settings, and ON-AIR, which uses long exposures and image compositing to make individual people and objects dissolve. Kim's work has been heavily influenced by Zen Buddhist concepts of interconnectedness and transience, and he commonly uses Buddhist iconography.
Biography Kim was born on Geoje Island, one of the southernmost islands in South Korea, and completed elementary school there before continuing his education in Busan.. He studied mechanical engineering at Changwon University and earned a Bachelor of Science degree. His application had been submitted on his behalf by a friend, who had also chosen his major for him because it offered a good prospect for a job after graduation.
Kim's decision to become an artist caused conflict with his father, a schoolteacher who wanted Kim to become a college professor.. Kim began experimenting with photography in junior high school, though he never studied it academically. His work during college was mostly abstract; dissatisfied with the results, he decided to explore the outside world and to photograph people from various backgrounds and stages of life. His first exhibited series was "Psychopath" in 1987, which were portraits of mentally ill patients.
His later participation in a group show gained him enough recognition that he was named Korea's representative to the twenty-fifth São Paulo Biennial in 2002, becoming the first photographer to represent Korea in that venue.. Kim entered The Museum Project, which became his first work to be widely exhibited outside of Korea..
ON-AIR, his first solo exhibition in the United States, was shown in 2006 at the International Center of Photography in New York City to positive critical reviews.. In contrast to his attempt at capturing permanence in The Museum Project, Kim now focused on transience in ON-AIR, with large-scale images created through very long or multiple exposures.
As of 2009, Kim lives and works in New York and Seoul.
Work Kim has described his photographs as merely "byproducts" of his attempt at a personal philosophy. He cites inspiration from the concept of interconnectedness in Zen Buddhism, the focus on temporal existence in the writings of German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), and the teachings of the Russian-Armenian mystic G. I. Gurdjieff (1872–1949) on transcendence.. Kim is careful to explain that he is not a practicing Buddhist, despite the prevalence of Buddhist iconography and concepts in his work.; .
Kim's work is in the permanent collections of the following institutions:Yossi Milo Gallery, bio of Atta Kim. Accessed January 30, 2007.
The Museet for Fotokunst, Odense, Denmark EARLLU Gallery, Singapore National Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwacheon, South Korea Artsonje Museum, Gyeongju Seoul Art Center, Seoul Leeum, Samsung Museum of Modern Art, Seoul Gyeongnam Art Museum, Changwon, South Korea Daelim Contemporary Art Museum, Seoul New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, United States Microsoft Art Collection , United States Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, United States Society for Contemporary Photography, Kansas City, Missouri, United States Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles County, California, United States JGS Foundation, New York, United States
Early work Kim's Psychopath series (1985–86) consisted of black and white portraits taken of patients in a Korean psychiatric hospital, that were shot during long, interactive sessions.; see for an image from the series. His interest in the patients was inspired by his reading of Sigmund Freud, and he intended to use his photography to reveal their consciousness; however, Kim ultimately concluded that the images "revealed nothing more...than the insanity of the patients.". Kim claims to have burned all 1,200 copies of the published collection, after the wife of a patron had to be hospitalized for a relapse of depression after seeing the book.
Kim began his next series, Father (1986–90), after he reunited with his father following the success of Psychopaths. He didn't consider the series, which depicted "the continuity of time" from generation to generation within his family, to be a significant artistic achievement, but thought it helped him "return...to [his] roots" and become "mentally independent.".
Human Cultural Assets (1989–90) is a series of black and white portraits of people designated "national cultural assets" by the Korean government. He met 150 individuals that had been so designated, which included elderly dancers, musicians, and monks, and spent between one and seven days with each trying to learn their personal philosophies.; . The series was not exhibited until 2002.
Kim's In-der-Welt-sein (1990–91) consists of black and white images of natural objects near a Buddhist temple, which are revealed only by a dim light.See examples at ; . Kim made the images with exposure times of one to two hours, taken between 3:00 am and 5:00 am, which are the hours known as the time of the Buddha's enlightenment.. The name of the series (German for "Being in the world") is a concept of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger intended to eliminate the distinction between subject and object. Kim recounts that when his father would walk him home from school as a child, he would point out small details such as flowers, insects, or stones. These observances taught him that all things were of equal significance to his own existence..
Deconstruction Deconstruction (1991–95) consisted of black and white photographs of groups of nude men and women positioned lifelessly in desolate landscapes.; see also pp. 25-39 for images from the series. These were described as "cinematic performance-based pictures." The subjects' faces are rarely visible, instead obscured by hair or by turning away from the camera so that they do not read as individuals. In a few images, however, the nudes are standing. Kim did not yet work with assistants, and so personally scouted the locations, recruited the models, and moved the equipment.
Kim noted that the series "created quite a shock" because the critics were unable to accept it. Though "the bodies were meant to signify dominant new life," the images were also perceived as "look[ing] like the aftermath of a catastrophe.". Others wrote that his use of the body as an object reflected "the sense of the sacred being present in all things, whether animate or inanimate, and of all things comprising the sacred."Yu Yeon Kim, writing in .
The Museum Project
Kim continued his placement of nude figures in unusual contexts in The Museum Project (1995–2002), his first color series. Each subseries within The Museum Project depicted people, either singly or in groups, formally posed on display within clear Plexiglas cases as if they were museum artifacts. Kim's "core concept" in The Museum Project "is that every single being in the universe has its own worth;" the series then functions as Kim's "private museum" to preserve these people as "contemporary treasures.". The series also explores "basic functions of the museum such as preserving, collecting, and categorizing.". The New York Times described the series as transforming human bodies into "untouchably inorganic" objects like "antique sculptures in a gallery or expensive machines in a showroom;" its critic found the series "effective: quiet, minimalist, mildly surreal."
The Museum Project consists of nine subseries:
"Field" (1995–1996). Nude men and women are crouched or standing in the display cases (typically one per case), which are placed out in the world in various natural and manmade locations, such as within a forest, in the middle of a city street with oncoming traffice, and in a department store.See Museum Project #001, Museum Project #030, and for images from the "Field" series. "Holocaust" (1997). Similar to "Field", the bodies are displayed out in the world, but are aggressively pressed between acrylic sheets hanging from meathooks in stark, industrial backgrounds, or hung by one leg in a row like sides of beef.See Museum Project #28, . "People" (1999). People of different ages and professions are on display; unlike in "Field" or "Holocaust", the cases are shot against featureless, monochromatic backgrounds and are lined with white cloth upon which the people stand or lay. Some of the subjects in "People" are individuals, others are pairs or groups. All suggest aspects of the subject's identity through dress or their relationship to others in groupings.See Museum Project #071, Museum Project #073; . "Prostitutes" (1999). Women are portrayed in traditional Korean dress in cases are displayed against red backgrounds. Some appear within the Plexiglas cases with other woman from different backgrounds, to obscure social status so "no moralistic judgment can be applied."See Museum Project #050; ; the quote comes from . "War Veteran" (1999). Wounded Korean soldiers are displayed against red backgrounds. All are nude, and display their wounds through exposed scars or amputated limbs, or by accessories required by their infirmity such as crutches, canes, prosthetics, or a wheelchair.See Museum Project #076; . "Sex" (1999). Nude couples in various positions of coupling, against a monochromatic background like the previous series. Some are engaged in what appears to be intercourse; others merely lay together or hold one another intimately.See Museum Project #087; . "Suicide" (2000). Each image dramatizes suicide by a different method, such as shooting or hara-kiri.. "Nirvana" (2001). The largest subseries depicts Buddhist priests and nuns nude, initially in a temple setting. Their chief abbot agreed to let them pose in the temple because Kim stated that his purpose was "to see the purity." The series was expanded to other settings, such as a constructed temple with paraffin Buddha figures, and other subjects.See , for description; , for images. "Salvation" (2002). Nude men or women are chained to Plexiglas crosses and attached to IV feeds.. The subseries is intended to reference the Christian concept that redemption is achieved through "transmission" of the sacred, as in Communion, in which the flesh and blood of Christ is symbolically ingested through bread and wine..
ON-AIR Project Kim began ON-AIR Project (2002–present) when he pondered that the subjects in his "private museum" in The Museum Project would not exist forever. The central concept of ON-AIR Project is accordingly the impermanence of all beings in the universe. The "ON-AIR Project" consists of three different procedures: first, long exposure technique is procedure which can make an object disappear in proportion to the speed; second procedure is creating new images by superimpose several images. Lastly, a procedure can be executed with journey to find meaning of existence which can be represented by ice melting process. Using extended exposure time from 8 hours to 25 hours per cut, Kim makes moving people and objects disappear, which achieves both a visual effect as well as an expression of "the precious value of individuals and of history.". Another grouping was formed from combining images so that an accretion of individuals becomes a composite.