Ru Kim (b. 1995, Hamburg) is an artist leading a research-based studio practice that questions the use of art in resisting normalized and embodied sexist and racist violence generated by patriarchal, imperial and colonial ideologies of domination.
Employing various media such as video, photography, sound, performance, installation and text, they seek to develop forms that challenge binaries and fixed identities.
Moving through different languages and nourished by hydro-, Black, queer feminist theories, Ru Kim’s work leads a deconstructivist analysis of oppressive, racist and colonial representations. Recent projects focus particularly on strategies of water as seen through a hydrofeminist lens, archives of queerness in Korean history, and archives revealing the "Asian" construction enacted by the Western gaze. Inspired by Augusto Boal’s theatrical games and notion of ‘spect-actor’ and Jack Halberstam’s idea of queer, imagined violence, their installations create aesthetical situations in which the spectator-turned-participant physically experiences a political conscientizing of their implications in logics of domination.
Bio
Ru Kim grew up in transit between Germany, Cyprus, Korea, Canada and Brazil, before moving to France to pursue their studies in art. They obtained a fine art bachelor and master’s degree with honors (DNSEP, félicitations du jury) at the École Supérieure d’Art et Design, Grenoble in June 2019.
Recently, Kim has opened their solo show Face Value (2021) at the Artist Residency TEMI in Korea, and has exhibited in the ANOZERO ‘21-’22 Coimbra Biennial of Contemporary Art Meia-Noite (2022) in Portugal, Fascination (2021) at the Centre Rhénan d’Art Contemporain (CRAC Alsace) in France, Non-/Human Assemblages: Sea Art Festival 2021 (2021) and N ARTIST 2021: Working with Uncertainties (2021) at the Gyeongnam Art Museum in Korea, and School of Waters: Mediterranea 19 Young Artists Biennale (2021) in San Marino. They have exhibited in group shows at Artist Residency TEMI (2021), the Clayarch Gimhae Museum (2020-2021), Choi & Lager Gallery (2020), Hwangumhyang (2020), SPACE Sarangfarm (2020) in Korea, Galerie Xavier-Jouvin (2015, 2018) in France and the Victoria Art Center (2017) in Romania, and organized performative events at the MAC VAL Museum (2019), and at KADIST Paris (2019). Kim has recently participated in the Artist Residency TEMI (2021), and the Clayarch Museum C.C.C. Residency (2020).