Gala Porras-Kim, 6 Balanced
stones, 2025, Colored pencil and Flashe on paper, 152.4 x 182.9 cm.
Courtesy of the artist and Kukje Gallery. Photo: Gala Porras-Kim Studio. ©Kukje GalleryKukje Gallery presents Gala Porras-Kim’s solo exhibition 《Conditions for holding a natural form》, on view in the gallery’s K1 space through October 26.
Porras-Kim’s work interrogates how cultural institutions
organize their collections, focusing especially on those classification systems
that shape how objects are produced, perceived, and preserved. Her work
poignantly reveals the mechanisms that underlie conventional museological
practices and proposes methods for recognizing the multiple functions and
histories of cultural objects.
In her first exhibition with Kukje Gallery, Porras-Kim presents
two groups of drawings that explore abstraction and the ways human-constructed
categories are applied to naturally-occurring and organic forms.
Gala Porras-Kim, 15 Rocks from
outer space, 2025, Colored pencil and Flashe on paper, 182.9 x 228.6
cm. Courtesy of the artist and Kukje Gallery. Photo: Gala Porras-Kim Studio. ©Kukje GalleryIn the exhibition, the artist presents a series of new,
non-traditional categories and groupings such as “balanced stones,”
“extraterrestrial stones,” “sacred stones,” and “animal-shaped stones.” The
works bring together images of existing stone formations, reimagined in the
shape and scale of personal collections, to highlight the ways we see and
appreciate each stone’s distinctive features.
The series continues what Porras-Kim refers to as “index
drawings,” which work through ideas of organizing structures that shape
contemporary interpretations of historical artifacts.
Gala Porras-Kim, Signal
(Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo 03/09/23-09/03/23), 2023, Graphite
on gessoed panel, 182.9 x 182.9 cm Courtesy of the artist and Kukje Gallery.
Photo: Chunho An. ©Kukje GalleryThe format for these drawings is inspired by chaekgeori, a
Korean genre of still life that depicts stacks of books, valuable items, and
scholarly accoutrements—a form of display which she re-employs as a means to
draw attention toward objects and how their meaning is shaped through
collecting practices. This series takes the form of meticulous drawings, and
the method of their construction encourages the artist and viewers to slow the
gaze and observe the distinctive details of each object.
As part of the exhibition, the artist invited suseok collectors
to showcase their own collections. Each unique stone is accompanied by a
message from the collector sharing stories about the object’s significance. In
doing so, the artist initiates a dialogue between the drawings and the
stones—one that reveals the interpretive and personal conditions that shape our
recognition of abstract and ancient forms.
