The Second Bite — Dew Kim

Drawing on his expertise in metalsmithing and jewellery, Korean artist Dew Kim creates sculptural installations in metal and blown glass characterised by a sharp-witted and sensual aesthetic. Mobilising notions of eroticism, pleasure, and pain, his work questions religious taboos and human desire. His two new sculptural wall pieces transform a metallic, phallic erotic toy into the form of a serpent, alluding to Satan’s transformation into the creature that tempts Eve with the forbidden fruit.

In They Swallowed the Serpent and Called It Prayer (2025), an elongated structure of chrome-plated brass evokes a slithering reptile as it coils around a mass of glass, seemingly constricting its prey to the point of suffocation. Covered in small, organic red dots, the violet blown glass appears to bleed beneath its skin under the brutal pressure, awaiting its death knell. Yet Kim’s meticulous manipulation of materials and composition lends this murderous scene an uncanny, tranquil, and even sublime quality. The brass rod bends gracefully into the flowing, sinuous shape of a seductive and tempting figure, while the bruised being, draped in silence, releases a post-climactic murmur after enduring excruciating torment.

One Whispered Pleasure, the Other Promised Pain, 2025, Gold-plated brass, blown glass, 35 x 35 x 27 cm

In One Whispered Pleasure, the Other Promised Pain (2025), the branch-like form, dazzling in liquid gold, invokes the mystical Tree of Knowledge, while the tantalising red glass bulb with a transparent end reimagines the forbidden fruit oozing sweet dewdrops. Biblical interpretations commonly teach that Adam and Eve’s acquisition of godlike knowledge and truth brought death and suffering. Kim, however, suggests an alternative interpretation of this familiar parable, intertwining pleasure and pain, divinity and sin.

Despite being scapegoated as the culprit behind humanity’s fall, Eve’s act of eating the forbidden fruit may be understood as a valuable enlightenment imparted by the serpent, the first being in prelapsarian times to challenge authority and its rules. Listening to the whispers of temptation, Eve liberates herself from unquestioning obedience and penetrates the grand promises concealed by the “Tree of Patriarchy,” acquiring a crystal-clear perception of a cruel reality. Rewriting the Edenic myth through bodily sensation, sacred violation, and the politics of desire, the sculptures become vessels of temptation, penetration, and divided ecstasy, where language fails yet the body remembers.

They Swallowed the Serpent and Called It Prayer, 2025, Chrome-plated brass, blown glass, 55 x 15 x 13 cm

Curated by Cusson Cheng
Photo by Lok Hang Wu
Courtesy of the artist and PODIUM, Hong Kong