Schematic Draft of a Disconnected Under River Tunnel

Kim Beom’s ‘Blueprints and Perspectives’ series, which was begun in 2002, depicts imaginary machines, vessels and structures. Each work typically consists of a lavishly rendered architect’s impression accompanied by a blueprint. As gleeful and humorous as these plans appear – with an engineering inventiveness appropriate to children’s fiction – they retain a parodic and sinister edge.

Kim belongs to the generation of South Korean artists whose adult life has coincided with their country’s transition to civilian democracy, and he takes a critical view of social developments. He has described his ‘Blueprints and Perspectives’ as metaphors for society, based on the absurdity, inhumanity, arbitrariness and contradiction that he has experienced in his own life. The matter-of-factness of the blueprint reflects the depersonalisation and machine-like logic of contemporary economics and social design.

Kim points out that while none of the creations detailed in his ‘Blueprints and perspectives’ series are real, ‘they are not that much more absurd and irrational than many things that we find in the real world’.

Exhibited in 'The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art' (APT9) | 24 Nov 2018 – 28 Apr 2019