Minouk Lim: Heat of Shadows

Minouk Lim: Heat of Shadows

Walker Art Center

Stills from The Weight of Hands
2010. Single-channel HD video
with sound, 13:51 minutes.*

May 23, 2012

Minouk Lim
Heat of Shadows

May 31–September 2, 2012

Walker Art Center
1750 Hennepin Ave
Minneapolis, MN 55403

T +1 612 375 7600

www.walkerart.org

The Walker Art Center is pleased to present the first in-depth museum exhibition by Seoul-based artist Minouk Lim. Merging performance, video, and documentary, Lim has created a body of riveting work that critiques the social and political conditions of a contemporary global society fueled by rampant growth and development. Describing her video-based work as “performance documentary theater,” Lim engages with the arteries of city life—the streets—to create poignant works that speak to the loss of place and collective memory that give voice to what she calls the “ghosts of modernization.” Minouk Lim: Heat of Shadows opens at the Walker Art Center on May 31 and runs through September 2, 2012.

The exhibition presents a trio of immersive video installations based on performances in and around Lim’s hometown of Seoul. In New Town Ghost (2005), a slam poet with a megaphone raps on the back of a truck as it drives through a “new town” development in Seoul, as a reaction to the sweeping government initiatives that displace its citizens in the name of progress. S.O.S—Adoptive Dissensus (2009) follows nighttime passengers on a Han River cruise boat who encounter interludes staged on the river banks. An infrared camera records the warmth emanating from “pilgrims” as they travel on a tour bus to restricted construction sites in The Weight of Hands (2010). These arresting, multidisciplinary artworks unabashedly move from declarative gestures of protest to symbolic rituals of mourning speaking to the human cost of modernization.

Expanding on Lim’s interest in merging conceptual and performative gestures with three-dimensional objects, the exhibition showcases a series of new sculptures commissioned by the Walker. Constructed from thermofoam sculpted by heat and a combination of man-made and natural materials such as synthetic fur, paraffin, animal bones, polyurethane, velvet, and feathers, the works operate as protective shields and totemic devices for the human body within an imagined apocalyptic landscape. EchoingAndré Cadere’s wooden bars and Helio Oiticica’s parangolés, the sculptures will be animated by the choreography of Minneapolis-based dancer Emily Johnson (Catalyst) around themes of nature, myth, and civilization. This opening night performance called Firecliff 3 takes place on May 31 at 7pm.

Curated by Clara Kim, senior curator of visual arts, with Yesomi Umolu, visual arts fellow at the Walker Art Center.

About the artist
Minouk Lim was born in Daejeon, South Korea, and lives and works in Seoul. Her work has been shown in group and solo exhibitions at venues around the world, including the Freer-Sackler Galleries at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; San Francisco Art Institute and REDCAT; Witte de With, Rotterdam; and ArtSonje Center in Seoul. She was awarded the Hermes Korea Art Prize in 2007 and the 1st Media Art Korea Award in 2010.

In addition, Lim has participated in major international biennales and festivals including the 2011 Festival BOM, Seoul; the 2010 Liverpool Biennial Touched at FACT; the 2009 Yokohama International Festival of Arts and Media; the 7th Gwangju Biennale curated by Okwui Enwezor; and the 10th International Istanbul Biennale curated by Hou Hanru. She is exhibiting in the group exhibitions Melanchotopia at Witte de With in Rotterdam and at La Triennale: Intense Proximity, Paris.

Acknowledgments
Minouk Lim: Heat of Shadows is made possible by generous support from John L. Thomson and Helen and Peter Warwick. Additional support for Fire Cliff 3 provided by Performing Arts Market in Seoul and Arts Council Korea.

*Images above:
Stills from The Weight of Hands, 2010. Single-channel HD video with sound, 13:51 minutes.
Courtesy the artist and PKM Gallery / Bartleby Bickle & Meursault, Seoul.

 

 

Walker Art Center presents Minouk Lim: Heat of Shadows
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