Plane Object is a work that encapsulates the activities and identity of Korea’s leading modernist, Kim Yong-Ik, in the 1970s. Consisting of a piece of cloth that bears the crease marks of wrinkled fabric, which Kim applied with spray paint, this work engages the viewer’s perception of “genuine wrinkles” that appear after mounting the unstretched canvas to the wall using thumbtacks, as well as “imitative wrinkles” that are sprayed onto its surface, exploring notions of reproducibility and illumination in paintings, as well as the inherent properties of the medium. In 1981, Kim was invited to the 1st Young Artists, to which he submitted Plane Object as a representation of his activities at the time—he packaged the work in a paper box and declared his breakup with the Korean Modernism that Plane Object represented. This piece was included in the SeMA Seoul Mediacity Biennale 2016 NERIRI KIRURU HARARA, where it appeared as part of a project called Married by Powers in which artist Bik Van der Pol conducted a relay of exhibitions and interviews with six guest curators as an attempt to convert the museum’s collection into commons.
