Enrapture, 2022

Exhibited at Para Site, Hong Kong, 2022 






Enrapture, 2022, wood, lenticular print, mixed media, 180x95x4cm. 







LOOK, 2022, iron, aluminum, clay, a neon light, a light stick, 3D printed resin, iPhone, mixed media, 115x75x30cm.











Photo by Seungwook Yang




 ︎ Intallation view at Para Site, Hong Kong







Photo by Para Site






3D graphic by Cyan Hong
Photo by Seungwook Yang


Dew Kim’s interactive installation employs fantastical religious imagery and apocalyptic aesthetics to reinterpret the K-pop concept of ‘ending fairy pose’. Fans go through a process of cathexis at this zenith, in which they admire how idols overcome the shortness of breath caused by intense choreography. When the idols make eye contact with the camera and present divine expressions and poses, the fans invest an excess of affective capital and view the idols as an ultimate object of desire. Kim believes it has a similar modus operandi as how devotees worship their religious iconographies. Many masters in Western art canon have depicted the Ascension and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Such works in the Renaissance period glorify and exalt Jesus Christ but also perceives him as the sign of the Apocalypse, an omnipotent and encompassing Other that demands one to revere faithfully yet to be feared. Similarly, the video shooting techniques and mise-en-scene in K-pop music videos and live stages present the idols as divine, angelic figures with radiating halos. However, against the dystopian backdrop, they are either the root of ‘the Fall’ or ‘the Chosen Ones’ to take over the current world order. Discerning how K-pop fans ambivalently project their desiring and anxiety, Kim creates a painting-like installation Enrapture featuring himself as the holy idol amidst the apocalypse. The artist eternalises the ending fairy pose by framing himself in a delicate wood frame and lenticular printing that emulates stained glass windows in religious settings, encapsulating the desire-driven climactic moment in religio-inspired K-pop performances. The audience will also realise a technological, futuristic angel machine named LOOK gazing at them. Confronted by this unknown creature, the viewers are under godly luminescence from the LED light ring and see themselves being filtered by an iPhone as an ending fairy. The audience finds themselves becoming their object of desire, despite getting an overloaded amount of satisfaction yet simultaneously experiencing their utmost fear. / from Fanatic Heart, written by Cusson Cheng

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Dew Kim