production still (fireplace), 2012; courtesy of Artist





In 2012, I was commissioned for the inaugural exhibition of the Tanks at Tate, the permanent gallery for live art, performances, and film and video installation.


Temper Clay is a re-sketching of King Lear, a play written around the exchange between father and daughters of real estate properties for love, loyalty and class reaffirmation. I was invested in depicting the division, or the replacement of roles in contemporary Korean family structures in reference to dissolution of family structure along the distributive process in King Lear, (exemplified by the separation between the father and three daughters). I was particularly interested in male chauvinism as expressed through the vitriolic treatment by King Lear of his daughters layered in the context of another culture, time, and language.


The Temper Clay installation, the centerpiece, was collected by Tate; a video edition of Temper Clay was later collected both by MoMA through the Fund for the Twenty-First Century and by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Korea.




A more private motive for Temper Clay is to question if my being (of institutional and systemic lineage) can, through my current production, revise the very structure that had birthed my being. Other authors using the method of renovation include: Sohn, Jung-Mok, in his preface to Seoul Urban Planning Story, singles out the “real reason” (as opposed to other reasons) for writing the book: confronting cancer in his body. This text is a seminal document of the history of urban development in Korea. A more useful example might be Roland Barthes writing Camera Lucida, a text written about photography in parallel to his search for his deceased mother’s photograph that makes him exclaim, “there-she-is!” Or a more universal example could be One Thousand and One Nights, in which stories are told to save the storyteller’s life. In all three examples, a (human-scale) body is embedded in the text throughout.


The act of returning to older (aged) relationships and places is often associated with nostalgia or nepotism. Using my parents' real estate properties in Seoul and Pocheon as sets; and re-hiring their workers (maid, caretaker, or secretary) as characters or staff in the film production is done in the context of revitalizing aged buildings, inspired by The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs. The sets used in Temper Clay were then dwelling places of my parents, both in the urban and rural setting. These locations have previously been used as the set in Her (2003), From the commanding heights... (2007), Dog Video (2006), and Washing brain and corn (2010).



production still (hands that twist a spiral box), 2012; courtesy of Artist


production still (a posture of dreaming), 2012; courtesy of Artist


production still (affect a), Temper Clay, 2012; courtesy of Artist


production still (table lady), 2012; courtesy of Artist




Art Sonje Banner Project #3: Sung Hwan Kim – Temper Clay, 2014, The Rear Façade of Art Sonje Center, Seoul, Korea




"리움, 작가를 만나다 Leeum Meets the Artists," Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, video interview, 2021, https://youtu.be/6eTkWfC-f9Q


전민선, "진동하는 경계," 월간미술, 리뷰, 2021년 9월, p110-115


Janevski, Ana and Joseph, Martha, "An Interview with Sung Hwan Kim," MoMA Magazine, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Jun. 11, 2021, https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/582


강수정, "광장 2부, 한국미술과 사회 1950-2019: 만성적 역사 해석 증후군을 반대하며 - 가뭄 빛 바다," 광장: 미술과 사회 1900-2019, 국립현대미술관, 카탈로그, 2019년, p202-203


배명지, "역사를 몸으로 쓰다," 국립현대미술관, 카탈로그, 2017, p14-19
[Bae, Myungji, "Reenacting history_ Collective Actions and Everyday Gestures," National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, catalogue, 2017, p14-19]


Finbow, Acatia, "Sung Hwan Kim, Dog Video 2006, From The Commanding Height… 2007, Washing Brain and Corn 2010, Temper Clay 2012", case study, Performance At Tate: Into the Space of Art, Tate Research Publication, Jun. 2016


Wood, Catherine, "Sung Hwan Kim, Temper Clay," Talk or Sing, Samuso, 2014, p7-23


Jeppesen, Travis, "Openings: Sung Hwan Kim," Artforum, Vol. 51, Issue 7, Mar. 2013, p262-263


Warner, Nicholas, "Sung Hwan Kim: Tate Modern London 18 July to 28 October," Art Monthly, Vol. 360, Oct. 2012, p36


Noble, Kathy, "New Commission: Sung Hwan Kim," The Tanks Programme Notes, The Tanks at Tate Modern: Fifteen Weeks Of Art In Action, Jul. 18 - Oct.28, 2012, p10-11


























          night




          MoMA New York

          Artsonje

____ The Tanks at Tate Modern
































































































































































____ Art Sonje Banner Project