[...] Head inside to Tina Kim Gallery to see the ultimate version of “site-specific work” in a solo show of the Korean artist Kim Yong-Ik, Speaking of Latter Genesis (until 15 June). The artist spent four days making the abstract works on site—not just on the canvases, but the white-cube gallery’s walls as well. Kim used a motif of polka dots that has been in his work since the 1990s, placed sparingly in neat lines or all alone on white unframed canvases, and has brought the perfect black or orangey-red circles onto the walls, giving an orderly sense of flow. Some circles are cropped in a clean row at the edge of canvases or where the wall meets the ceiling, or wrap around a corner or a doorway in an asymmetrical fold, or continue beyond the canvases as outlines. Other more tempestuous works have painterly, wide brushstrokes of colour, with the stacked perfect circles as negative space. If you’re looking to buy, you can either snap up canvases individually or as a full wall installation, to be recreated on-site.
May 23, 2019
