《Vitrine: Nayoung Kim & Gregory Mars》

About the Exhibition

Marking the 100th anniversary of the Ilmin Museum of Art's building, this new work — installed at the 'Vitrine,' a space set up at the museum's now-disused old entrance — is composed of assembled and reconstructed transparent glass objects. Eleven artists of differing nationalities, characters, and backgrounds are credited as participants, but all of them are in fact Kim Nayoung & Gregory Maass themselves. The two call this method of working under borrowed names and styles of other selves 'phrenonymy,' and the nature of the Vitrine — which combines the functions of preservation and display, a passage linking inside and outside — resonates with the indeterminacy of their work, mixed as it is with multiple names and personas. This new piece is a variation on Sharon is Karen (2025), which the duo's alternate identity 'Kimkim Gallery' presented at the 2025 Chiba City Arts Triennale. Composed entirely of transparent glass objects, the work is a choice made to commemorate the 100th anniversary of both the Vitrine that houses it and the building that contains it; transparent items of differing origins and uses — from IKEA products to Victorian-era relics, lead-free antiques, and animal specimen preservation containers — are layered together to form a baroque excess.