X Museum is thrilled to announce the opening of ‘The Pool by X Museum’ in Taikoo Li Qiantan Shanghai this March. For this venue’s inaugural show, we present you South Korean artist Yunchul Kim’s new commission ‘Chroma VIII’. The show features the newest edition of the artist’s critically acclaimed Chroma series. ‘Chroma’, in its scientific definition, is a sensory indicator that reflects the hue and saturation of a color, and it quantifies human perception of the intricacies of color together with luminance. This rather nebulous term accurately and sharply captures the scientific methodology and visual language employed by the artist.
Developed from topology, the body of ‘Chroma VIII’ comprises234 units in total. These units consist of highly transparent laminated polymers, motors, microcontrollers, and LEDs. Each unit has a unique shape and undergoes subtle deformation through applied pressure on the transparent polymer. Consequently, the dynamic surfaces of the work units flicker with iridescent light, providing a novel visual experience. The light and color flowing through the material, sound entwined within mechanical movement, triggering sensory experience beyond daily perception.
Through the repetition of a single unit, the work brings a massive sense of scale dazzling, and perpetually in motion, making the viewer inseparable from the space. The circular, knotted forms, the curves of the structure with no beginning and end, evoke a cosmic imagination through their visual representation. This labyrinthine form, which has fascinated us since ancient times, carries a strong symbolic attribute, recurring in human culture and thus evolving into a subject of events, pulsations, and the transformation of matter through time and space. Artistic practice and scientific methodology come hand in hand in Yunchul Kim’s artistic production. The artist explores the potential of matter, seeing machines, materials, and humans as subjects in constant flux with their environments, rather than never-changing entities existing throughout time.
About the Artist
Yunchul Kim (b. 1970, Seoul, South Korea) lives and works in Seoul, South Korea, and is also active internationally. The artist has won international awards, including the 2016 Collide International Award from CERN, Ars Electronica, and the VIDA 15.0 Third Prize. He has also held solo exhibitions in several venues around the world, including the Korean Pavilion, 59th Venice Biennale, Italy; CCCB, Spain; FACT Liverpool, UK; Ars Electronica, Austria; Frankfurt Museum of Art, Germany; and the International Triennial of New Media Art, China.
Yunchul Kim works in a wide range of forms, including installation, painting, sound, text and other media, and incorporates mathematics, technology, music, philosophy, poetry and cosmology into his practice. Asking fundamental questions about “material” and “materiality,” he has demonstrated the creation of a reality beyond the realm of human experience, paying attention to its potential tendencies. His work embodies the material world imagined by the artist and is a story of a dimension before humans formed cultures or were defined by language.
About The Artists
About The Curators
