Ho Jae Kim

Across his rigorous practice, Ho Jae Kim examines questions of liminality: the artist renders scenes of existential transition and disorientation, transcribing the wayward architectures of purgatory and other entrapped states. In Castaway, Kim continues to investigate the aesthetics and affects that color this psychic in between. He considers the film Cast Away (2000) as a cultural reference from which to address such interior reckoning. In the blockbuster film, Tom Hanks plays a man deserted on an island; with few tools and resources, he must learn how to endure the trauma of solitude. He personifies a volleyball to cope with his loneliness, naming it Wilson. As Kim sees it, Wilson does not only function as a material object. Like an artwork, Wilson is the product of internal and external rumination—he embodies the protagonist’s psyche.

Ho Jae Kim (b. 1993, Seoul, South Korea) received a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2016. Most recently, he has participated in exhibitions at Harper’s, New York, Los Angeles, and East Hampton (2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021); Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles (2023); Make Room, Los Angeles (2023); NEXX Asia, Taipei (2023); Christie's, New York (2022 and 2020); Sotheby’s, New York (2022 and 2018); and EXPO Chicago, online (2021). Kim’s work has been acquired by the collections of JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and X Museum, Beijing. He lives and works in New York City.