yunchul kim presents ‘gyre’ exhibition inside the korean pavilion in venice

Yunchul Kim’s second coming

At Venice Art Biennale 2022, artist and electronic music composer Yunchul Kim has transformed the Korean Pavilion with five large-scale kinetic sculptures and a site-specific wall drawing. Titled Gyre, the exhibition curated by Young-chul Lee is inspired by a 1919 poem by William Butler Yeats called ‘The Second Coming’, in which the Irish poet describes how a ‘widening gyre’ would unleash anarchy unto the world.

For the Biennale, Kim turns the pavilion into its own world, or ‘living body’, occupied by his dynamic works that intend to awaken visitors’ senses to the continuous cycle of beginnings and endings. The spectacular installations reflect the artist’s transdisciplinary practice fusing art, literature, mythology, philosophy and science, and unfold around three themes: The Swollen Suns, The Path of Gods and The Great Outdoors.

video © designboom (main image by Roman März)

Chroma V & Gyre

At the center of the exhibition is the 50-meter-long Chroma V (2022). Tangled in one big knot, the snake-like sculpture links all the artworks and the surrounding spaces together, like the central nerves that connect different parts of the body. As it receives signals from another exhibit, Argos – The Swollen Suns, the sculpture begins to pulsate and breathe.

Behind Chroma V is Kim’s site-specific drawing Gyre (2022), which illustrates the ‘world as a labyrinth’ where matter, time, objects and beings interact and co-exist.

Yunchul Kim, Chroma V. Korean Pavilion, 2022. Courtesy of the artist. Image © designboom.

Argos – The Swollen Suns

In one corner of the exhibition space stands the monumental Argos – the Swollen Suns (2022). The installation is composed of hundreds of glass tubes that flash with light as it detects subatomic muon particles. Once detected, Argos scatters signals and triggers the movement of Chroma V (2022).

Under the Swollen Suns theme, this piece reflects on how debris from the Sun’s implosion would create new worlds. Kim references this cosmic event as a lens through which to view present reality; where all things disperse and come together, illuminating the world anew.

Yunchul Kim, Argos – the Swollen Suns. Korean Pavilion, 2022. Courtesy of the artist. Image by Roman März.

La Poussière de Soleils

La Poussière de Soleils (2022) is a living sculpture that nods to French poet Raymond Roussel’s play of the same name. Made of vermiculite, this novel material created by Kim shows a kaleidoscope of colors that is only visible through specially fabricated lenses. Discreetly connected to devices, microcomputers and software, the installation controls the wavelength and conviction of light in relation to its own density.

Yunchul Kim, La Poussière de Soleils. Korean Pavilion, 2022. Courtesy of the artist. Image by Roman März.

Impulse

An adaptation of an existing work, Impulse (2018) is a massive chandelier that funnels Venice seawater through hundreds of intertwined tubes surrounding the sculpture, connecting the pavilion to the world outside the exhibition.

Yunchul Kim, Impulse. Korean Pavilion, 2018. Courtesy of the artist. Image by Roman März.

Flare

For Flare (2014), two different transparent liquids with different properties and specific densities, which remain immiscible, are sealed. As the surfaces of those liquids are coated with hydrophilic materials, the solution gleams like metal. Connected to three motors, the rods rotate and the silvery flare solution swirls like ‘a wet flame’.

Yunchul Kim, Flare. Korean Pavilion, 2014. Courtesy of the artist. Image © designboom.