Saturday Night, © In Sook Kim, Courtesy of Richard Levy Gallery
In Sook Kim
One of the photography rising stars of the Armory Art Show last week was 39-year-old South Korean photographer, In Sook Kim.
Presented by the Gana Art Gallery, In Sook Kim's Saturday Night is an impressive collage of photos taken from her In the Room series, which includes photographs of people in individual rooms, either enduring the inherent loneliness of the human condition alone or exorcising the ennui by engaging in a variety of sexual acts and taboos with others. As a result, as a viewer of this picture we likewise indulge either our natural inclination toward the prurient examination of other people's lives or the sexual taboo of voyeurism.
As the 2008 Lucie Awards winner for Best Photography Magazine, Eyemazing Magazine, aptly put it when they reviewed her work in their Artists Issue 1, 2008:
“In Sook Kim imparts to her viewers a world in which people appear as the roles they play and not necessarily as the people they really are. In the viewing process, these human subjects become both the seen and the seers (literally: voyeurs). While some appear at ease with themselves, others seem harassed or imprisoned by their own needs.”
While examining Saturday Night on Saturday Day at the Armory, I overheard Bong Lee, the gallery’s director, explain that the photo of the front of the hotel was taken at a different time than the photos of each of the individual rooms, which were subsequently photoshopped in.
The result is a spectacular menagerie of scenes depicting loneliness, home-sick travelers, wandering souls, yearning, orgies, S&M sessions, multi-sexual acts, and fetishes that titillate, if only because of the sheer artistry of work.
Beginning in 2001, In Sook Kim studied photography for five years at the Düsseldorfer Akademie under Thomas Ruff and in 2005 she was Meister (Master) Student under his tutelage.
However, In Sook Kim actually doesn’t consider herself a “photographer.” In a press release from the German dealer, Galerie Ricarda Fox, In Sook Kim states in an interview with Karl E. Johnson, “I’m not a photographer; I’m an artist. And if my work functions better with a different medium, I’ll just use that other medium.”
Moreover, the interview further reveals to what extent she was influenced by her famous teacher.
KJ: How did being a pupil in Thomas Ruff’s master class influence your study of women?
ISK: Well, the contents of the works were mine. And so being in the master’s class had no effect on that. Studying under Thomas Ruff helped me develop the underlying concept of my art. His support allowed me to better realize what I had in mind, and to work more effectively with my own subject matter.
With a basic understanding of Ruff’s work and school of thought, one might infer a certain distancing between In Sook Kim and her former professor, especially since Ruff is well known for both his original early emotionless portraits of people, as well as his series of photos that “approbate” the work of others and which he argues he “makes his own.”
In sum, I was quite impressed by In Sook Kim’s epic piece, Saturday Night. For it is a genuine manifestation of originality, honed craft, and “art” in my perspective.
A few of the galleries that represent In Sook Kim include:
Miki Wick Kim Contemporary Art
Zurich, Switzerland
Levy Gallery
Albuquerque, New Mexico, US
Gana Art Gallery
New York City, New York, US
Galerie Ricarda Fox
Mülheim, Germany
Thomas Ruff
In contrast to In Sook Kim’s recent success, her mentor, Thomas Ruff, is an artist-photographer-provocateur who has been celebrated on the art circuit for well over a decade.
Like In Sook Kim, Thomas Ruff also studied photography at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf Art Academy) from 1977 to 1985, with Bernd and Hilla Becher. Students of this era were primarily interested in industrial architecture, which they photographed objectively, and in turn from which they created "typologies." It was during his studies here that Ruff also developed his method of conceptual serial photography.
Twenty years later, from 2000 to 2005, he would end up teaching In Sook Kim and others like her, his controversial methods and philosophy at the academy.
In sum, since 1989 Ruff has produced series of images that were photographs taken by other people or machines even. These have included series of the night sky, Internet pornography, newspaper images, photos of rocket launches and most recently, images of Saturn taken by the Cassini satellite.
Ultimately, the photos that Ruff created were not by any means conventional. If anything, his work antithetically opposes any such notions of traditional art and beauty, with the end result often being a grand, hugely pixilated, distortion of the original picture.
Ruff’s work is more like a manifestation of aesthetic philosophy than art itself. It is much more academic spew, than an earnest work of craft. Nonetheless, the art world has come to embrace his brand of conceptual art and his pieces sell regularly for $10,000 to $20,000.
The seeming lack of effort, creativity and originality on Ruff’s part, and the staggering prices that his work goes for bewildered me. Hence, I took it upon myself to try and understand and untangle the oxymoron of art that his work represents.
By my rough count, Thomas Ruff was represented by at least four galleries at the Armory this year. These included Mai 36 Galerie, in Zurich Switzerland; Lia Rumma in Naples, Italy; Johnen Galerie in Berlin, Germany and David Zwirner in the New York City. Artfact.net lists 38 dealers selling his work in 13 countries including Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Columbia, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, UK and USA.
I spoke briefly with representatives from three of the galleries at the Armory about Ruff’s work and why they had chosen to represent him.
Lia Rumma, Naples
My first conversation was with Fabrizio Tranmontano of the Lia Rumma gallery in Naples, Italy.
Fabrizio explained to me that although he proved himself as a photographer of original work decades ago, he is perhaps best known for his “approbation” of other’s work—which essentially means ripping off random photos from the Internet and “making them his own,” by distorting them, cropping them, enlarging them until the pixels look like an assortment of multicolored boxes.
Fabrizio suggested to better understand Ruff’s work, I should “stand back and see it from a distance.” We did just that for “Jpegr107, 2007” a 98.5 x 74 inch photo of a rocket launch. Yet, I still didn’t get it—I still could not see the inherent value in the work.
I asked Fabrizio about the legal ramifications of Ruff’s approbation. He replied that no one has made an issue of it because, “He’s made the photo his own.”
Johnen Galerie, Berlin
Next, I spoke with Manuel Miseur of Johnen Galerie in Berlin. When I asked him why they represent Ruff, he smiled and replied, “Well, first of all he’s German and we are a German gallery. We were one of the first to carry him.”
When I asked Manuel to explain the value of the work he stated, “Ruff takes small images and creates the exact opposite of what we expect from a JPEG. He is playing with the technical aspects of photography, which makes it interesting.”
David Zwirner, New York City
Finally, I spoke with Ales Ortuzar, director of David Zwirner, New York City.
On display were a few photos from his rocket launch and Cassini series.
Like the others, I asked Ales why they carried Ruff. He replied, “Oh, he’s one of our favorites. He has an artistic point of view, which breaks the boundaries of the medium.”
I then cut to the chase and asked him to define Ruff’s “approbation” technique.
Looking quite shocked, he answered, “Oh, I couldn’t do that.”
Albeit he was nonplussed, I pressed nonetheless. “Really, you can’t define it even though you have been representing him for ten years?”
He remained silent, albeit demonstrably frustrated by the challenge.
In sum, maybe it's just me, but I wasn’t all that impressed with Ruff’s work. Perhaps, it is simply a matter of taste, perhaps I am too ignorant of the history and methodology to understand the importance and value of oversized JPEGs ripped off the Internet.
Much how advocates against pornography declare that it violates women, examining the quality of Ruff’s work and the exorbitant price tags associated with it, likewise makes me feel violated, makes me feel as if anyone who buys into the ruse ends up being a victim of some gross intellectual joke.
Ultimately, for my defense and perspective on “What is art,” I call upon something that has long been misattributed to Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, but which actually was written by Justice Potter Stewart in Jacobellis v. Ohio, 1964.
"I could never succeed in intelligibly [defining pornography], but I know it when I see it."
Perahps, now that the financial and real estate pustules have burst, it is time that the art world reexamines the value and standards of the work it purports. For albeit beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder, what constitutes "art" should not be beholden to its perceived market value.
"In whatever one does there must be a relationship between the eye and the heart."
Henri Cartier-Bresson
For more info:www.levygallery.com
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