Bunny’s Sofa
2007 - Sculpture (Sculpture)
Gimhongsok
To explore the boundaries between artwork and audience, Gimhongsok created a series of sculptural performances in which a person wearing an animal costume poses in the gallery. Bunny’s Sofa is a continuation of this series, but with a different twist. Instead of hiring a real person to dress as the animal, Gimhongsok placed a mannequin inside the rabbit costume. When exhibiting the work, the artist produces a false statement claiming that he has paid an illegal worker from North Korea to wear the suit and to maintain a lounging posture for a certain length of time. But both the performer and the financial transaction existed only in the text, truths concealed by the costume and social propriety. By interchanging physical realities and contexts and obscuring details, Gimhongsok challenges the effectiveness of visual and textual communication to create a potential moral anxiety in the viewers.
Raising questions about South Korea’s position in the world beyond its own social and political borders, Seoul-based artist Gimhongsok investigates communication, language, and popular culture. Gimhongsok’s ideas and deadpan satirical humor manifest themselves in many media and, because his creative process and personal style remain enigmatic, he is considered to be a “mysterious genius” in his homeland. Whether overt or implicit in their message, Gimhongsok’s spectacular works juxtapose image and language to lure viewers into a labyrinthine journey towards ever-elusive meaning.
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