'Brainwashed' rock, canvas-filling maze, screaming painter - the absurd art of Kim Beom

Kim Beom's "A Rock That Was Taught It Was a Bird" (2010) / Courtesy of Leeum Museum of Art

Veteran conceptual artist's first domestic solo exhibition in 13 years mounted at Leeum Museum of Art

By Park Han-sol

In a dimly lit room at the Leeum Museum of Art in central Seoul, a curious spectacle unfolds.

In one corner, a single rock is perched on a bough. Next to it is a video of a man sternly lecturing that very stone for 87 minutes on how it should be able to fly because it "is, in fact, a bird!"

Across the room sits a model ship, equally subject to a 91-minute-long videotaped lesson as the supposed instructor lists geological, meteorological and astronomical evidence to convince the waterborne object that the Earth consists only of land.

The whole spectacle culminates in a pseudo-classroom, where everyday items ― a kettle, a fan and a kitchen scale, among others ― are seated in front of a blackboard to learn that they are nothing but tools built for humans and therefore "should not ever think for themselves."

Kim Beom's "Objects Being Taught They Are Nothing but Tools" (2010) / Newsis

Through such absurdist scenarios, veteran conceptual artist Kim Beom's poignant installation series comments on the ways in which the education system ― including that of the 1970s and 1980s he experienced growing up during Korea's authoritarian regimes ― influences individuals' views about the world and their own identities.

The series is one of the centerpieces highlighted at Kim's solo exhibition "How to become a rock" ― a rare, large-scale survey of the eclectic creator's oeuvre that often uses absurdist premises and dry humor to question our understanding of our surroundings.

More than 70 installations, paintings and videos on view are refreshing to both the eye and the mind, urging us to momentarily push aside our habitual ways of thinking and adopt an alternative lens to reexamine our given social environment.

"Kim is an artist who thinks the most and shows the least," Leeum's deputy director Kim Sung-won said at the recent press preview. "And when faced with his works that are minimalist and unpretentious in nature, we need to notice and react to as many clues as possible that lie beneath the surface."

Kim Beom's "Fearless Fear" (1991) / Courtesy of Leeum Museum of Art

Sculptural pieces like "Pregnant Hammer" (1995), a hammer with a bulging handle, and "Inanimated Objects" (2008), a video that documents everyday items "dying" and turning into dust, represent the artist's persistent interest in animism as he steers away from anthropocentric tendencies and attributes consciousness to items of little worth.

Some works dethrone various symbols of power and prestige, thereby taking a jab at socially ingrained notions of authority.

He puts an unexpected twist on the traditional blue-and-white porcelain, long reserved for the royal court during the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom as a symbol of wealth and decorum, by producing a playful "knockoff" of his own. Made out of common paper clay instead of kaolin, his jar features a dinosaur motif drawn with a ballpoint pen in place of a dragon.

In "Untitled (News)" (2002), Kim splices hours-long footage of television news based on each syllable uttered by the newscasters and rearranges the shots so that the presenters would "read out" an article that the artist himself had written. Such an attempt destabilizes the mass media's conventionally unilateral power and influence on shaping public perception.

Kim Beom's "Pregnant Hammer" (1995) / Courtesy of the artist, Leeum Museum of Art

Likewise, his canvas works are anything but predictable.

"Landscape #1" (1995) refrains from depicting any pictorial image and instead resorts solely to handwritten instructions ― recalling the practices adopted by 1960s and 1970s conceptual artists. By asking viewers to "look" and "stare" at the unseen blue sky, trees and flowing river, the piece pushes them to fill the empty canvas with their own imagination.

"In a fundamental sense, paintings like this embody the very idea of interactivity," said the deputy director.

Kim Beom's "Landscape #1" (1995) / Korea Times photo by Park Han-sol

The active spectator participation also becomes essential in the "Untitled (Intimate Suffering)" series, where the artist painstakingly fills the entire canvas with a dizzying maze ― thereby tapping into the human instinct to find solutions when confronted with challenges.

Similarly, Kim's so-called "perceptual painting" series invites viewers to constantly play guessing games by portraying subjects in a semi-abstract form and at an unconventional angle ― such as an extreme close-up of the notch of a car key that resembles mountain ridges from afar.

Kim Beom's "Untitled (Intimate Suffering #13) (2014) / Newsis

There is even a work that will surprise unsuspecting visitors' eardrums.

"Painting 'Yellow Scream'" (2012) adopts the format of a painting tutorial, taking spectators through the process of producing an abstract work of art with different shades of yellow. But the video takes an unexpected turn when the artist ― played by a hired actor ― explains that each brushstroke must be accompanied by "a scream induced by psychological pain."

"Prepare some lemon yellow on your palette, and let's put in some anguished screaming to it," he says as he yells at the canvas.

Playfully dubbed as the "Anti-Bob Ross" by some online users, the video humorously embodies the struggle and agony that are an intimate part of any creative pursuit.

"How to become a rock" runs through Dec. 3 at the Leeum Museum of Art.

A scene from Kim Beom's "Painting 'Yellow Scream'" (2012) / Courtesy of the artist, Leeum Museum of Art