New review on AEQAI

I invite you to read my review of Sungsoo Kim's exhibition at the Marta Hewitt Gallery in Cincinnati, OH. The article is called 'Diaphanous Negation.'  Here is an excerpt:

Sungsoo Kim. Rediscovery 100302 (2009).
Kiln cast glass, 13"h x 8.5"w x 3.5"d.
Photo Courtesy of the Marta Hewitt Gallery.

Part of the aesthetic experience of Kim's work is a reliance on the idiosyncratic combination of form and material. The intellect naturally takes delight in this reversal of usage, here from packing material to aesthetic object (think how often artists exploit the term 'repurpose'). The result is that the two objects—the initial source styrofoam and the final sculpture—have diametrically opposite qualities. Styrofoam is designed to absorb impact, protecting the object resting in its negative spaces. The foam is the inessential, the object it protects is the essential. Styrofoam—typically white, somewhat translucent, lightweight, and inexpensive—is easily disregarded, especially given its cheap cost and non-archival qualities. On the other hand, Kim's glass sculptures are fragile; the production of the piece is far more labor-intensive; the solid aspect becomes the essential and creates a relationship to the negative space; and the lightness of the styrofoam is replaced by the purer translucence and weightiness of the glass. The precious object that was the function of the source packing material is now represented by a negation. In this negation lies the symbol of the whole transformation.
[Full Article]