The sculptor SongMi Kim held her first solo exhibition in 1997 in Seoul. It was titled “In Sex and Castle” (성(城)과 성(性) 안에서) and reflected the situation in the Korean society of the time, marked by significant gender inequality. The artist responded to this reality through the exhibition in a markedly combative way.
In 2004 she decided to leave such a Korea, to move to the Czech Republic, to break away from her existence so far, to start again and to try something she had not known until then: to study art glass… For many years she found herself between two worlds – feeling neither Korean nor Czech – and the plight of women in Korea almost faded from her memory. Only recently, in 2019, in the Bratislava studio of Palo Macha, where she was invited by this prominent artist for a creative residency, did the old theme fully open up before her again and prompt her to ask: “Are we equal? Have we really achieved equality?”
In Korea and other countries there is a saying that goes: “When the hen crows loudly, the family falls apart.” The symbolic image of a beaten hen led SongMi Kim to reflections – historical, sociological and zoological. She gave these reflections material form in a cycle titled “Koko, koko… KOKODÁK!” (꼬꼬, 꼬꼬… 꼬꼬닥!), which she now presents to the public in a comprehensive form for the first time at the exhibition in Galerie Kuzebauch.
The cycle in the exhibition is complemented by works on a similar theme that preceded the current cycle. In the black-and-white photograph “Existence” from 1998 we see the artist's naked, huddled figure with a shaved head. For the artist, hair is a symbol of imprisonment, so she cut off her own – glossy and very long – in the manner of Buddhist monks, thereby symbolically freeing herself from the secular world. In this way she expressed her inner strength and her determination to stop being silent and to begin speaking aloud.
In the amber-coloured glass mass of another work, a sculpture titled “Klesání” (2006), there is a silvery cavity in the shape of a dried cod, whose head escapes out through a collapsing wall. In its outer contour the work resembles a residential house. Until recently it was still said in Korea that a woman, like a dried cod, must be beaten every third day to make her soft.
The main message of the exhibition is a call not to stay in place, but to seek a new path – to confidently abandon a bad past in favour of a better future for oneself and for the world in which women live.
Curator of the exhibition: Milan Hlaveš
