On exhibition through Fri, May 8, 2020 Free and open to the public
Here, at Curatorial Research Bureau and 100 Books, Na Kim’s site-specific wall drawing titled SET v.19: graphic uses a series of formal design elements—color, pattern, geometry, typography, and text—pulled from the catalogue of visual graphics in her 2015 monograph titled SET published by Roma Publications.
SET v.19: graphic is 19 in Kim’s ongoing series that draws from the monograph like a kind of graphic manual, a collection of signifiers each pointing to past visual elements in her professional archive. This wall drawing has ten graphic elements. Each refers past issues of GRAPHIC magazine, all published while Kim served as chief editor and art director from 2009 to 2011. Visitors see the aesthetic correlation among the bold graphics, each accompanied by a number. The numbers (like pages of a book) suggest that the elements are part of a larger collection—a set, while serving as practical guides to the index in the monograph-manual-archive SET.
Na Kim is a graphic designer currently based in Seoul and Berlin, as a member of Table Union. She has focused on the visual language on autonomous works as well as various cultural commissioned projects. She was responsible for concept and design of GRAPHIC magazine from 2009 to 2011 and has initiated, since 2015, a series of projects based on her monograph SET. Her solo exhibitions include Black and White (2019), Red, Yellow, Blue (2017), SET (2015), Choice Specimen (2014), Found Abstracts (2011), and Fragile (2006). Kim has served as curator for Brno Biennale, Chaumont Festival, Seoul International Typography Biennale, and Fikra Graphic Design Biennial. She has worked on projects with COS, Hermès, ÅLAND and other commercial clients, as well as shown work at National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, Victoria & Albert, London, MoMA, Milan Triennale Museum, and Die Neue Sammlung Design Museum, Munich. Na Kim is a member of AGI since 2016.
