O-1 Visas
In a reoccurring dream of mine, modernist artworks get loose from the museum and, having become animate, they go for a stroll, making friends with buildings and monuments, people and pigeons. Something like this fantasy occurs in two recent series by Kim, Jung Soo, a Korean artist currently living in Chicago. “Frame” finds hard-edge abstractions, fashioned by sticking cut-up Post-its to frosted 12 x 12 acrylic panels, mounted on tripods and hanging out in the Loop. The high-rises and giant Calder sculpture of Federal Plaza prove good company for Kim’s colorful geometry. In “Fluidity,” a mid-size trio of inscrutably shaped MDF figures—two edgy blue ones, one sinuous red—wander the grounds around the Art Institute, posing beside the grid of decorative fountains in the south garden, checking out the Richard Serra and Franz West in Grant and Millennium Parks. Each encounter brings out something new in both Kim’s creations and the city’s public works.
—Lori Waxman 2025-11-04 12:03 PM