Jibin Im

EVERYWHERE in Taipei No.1 at Nan Jing Road, 2016, Fabric balloon, 400x250x250cm

Anytime Anywhere

Jibin Im

Jibin Im’s artworks often feature popular animal characters, such as Mickey Mouse or Bearbrick, the large-eared bear formed by connecting block units (similar to Legos). Unlike the densely patterned or ornately designed varieties of Bearbrick (like those popularized by the American artist KAWS), Im’s characters are usually blank, resembling large balloon animals. They come in various sizes, including some that are almost too large (up to four meters tall) to fit in indoor spaces.

How's your day today, 2014, Car paint on plastic, 20x150x150cm

Slave - I’m in Pain Because Of You, 2020, car paint on plastic, a horn of water buffalo, 70x40x30cm

In his “Everywhere Project,” Jibin Im installs his massive bears in various urban spaces where they can be seen by anyone. Significantly, the bears are made from fabric balloons, making them extremely easy to transport and install in different parts of a city, despite their large size. This flexible design represents the artist’s intention to create works that are easily accessible to as many people as possible. At the same time, it allows Im to elicit new meaning from each installation, depending on whether the bear is standing in a public square or wedged into the narrow gaps and spaces between buildings. His works might be found lying (on their stomach or back) beneath the arcade of an old street, inside a building under construction, in an empty desert devoid of people, on the beach, or in a narrow exhibition hall with low ceilings. In the latter case, the unique posture of the large bear character yields a particularly dramatic effect. These installations are then documented in photographs that constitute a derivative series of works, in and of themselves.

EVERYWHERE in Taipei No.1 at Nan Jing Road, 2016, Pigment print on paper, 150x200cm

You are not alone, 2018, Pigment print on paper, 100x150cm

In his “Everywhere Project,” Jibin Im installs his massive bears in various urban spaces where they can be seen by anyone. Significantly, the bears are made from fabric balloons, making them extremely easy to transport and install in different parts of a city, despite their large size. This flexible design represents the artist’s intention to create works that are easily accessible to as many people as possible. At the same time, it allows Im to elicit new meaning from each installation, depending on whether the bear is standing in a public square or wedged into the narrow gaps and spaces between buildings. His works might be found lying (on their stomach or back) beneath the arcade of an old street, inside a building under construction, in an empty desert devoid of people, on the beach, or in a narrow exhibition hall with low ceilings. In the latter case, the unique posture of the large bear character yields a particularly dramatic effect. These installations are then documented in photographs that constitute a derivative series of works, in and of themselves.

I'm in pain because of you, 2016, Car paint on plastic, a horn of water buffalo, 200x140x120cm

Slave - I’m in Pain Because Of You, 2020, car paint on plastic, a horn of water buffalo, 70x40x30cm

I’m in Pain Because Of You, 2020, car paint on plastic, a horn of deer, 60x50x35cm

Exemplifying the spirit of pop art, Jibin Im actively strives to create contact points with as many people as possible, beyond the typical art audience. Produced as multiples or life-sized sculptures, his Bearbrick works are replicated in diverse forms and products. Moving forward, this dedication to expansion, access, and flexibility will certainly allow Jibin Im to contact and engage new potential audiences through future projects.

Slave-After-image of the memories 8, 2016, car paint on plastic, 80x60x25cm

You Are Not Alone, 2021, car paint on plastic, 30x20x25cm

Jibin Im
b. 1984
Solo Exhibitions
2020 NOW-HERE, 3rd Museum, Seoul
Colorful Garden, GANA Children’s Museum, Yangju
Room 59-1, Gallery LAAB, Seoul
2018 Space in LOVE, Sejong Center, Seoul
You Are Not Alone, Kangwon Land, Jeongseon
2017 EVERYWHERE, GANA Children’s Museum, Yangju
EVERYWHERE, K Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul
2016 Space in LOVE, Wooyang Museum of Art, Gyeungju
2014 Space in LOVE, Seoul Square, Seoul
Space in LOVE, GANA Art Park Museum, Yangju
Art for Everyone, Fn Art Space, Seoul
2013 Space in LOVE, Seoul Metropolitan Government Square, Seoul
Duo Exhibitions
2021 Someone, Somewhere, Jibin Im & Nahyun Koo, Gallery We, Youngin
2020 Home Sweet Home, Jibin Im & Nahyun Koo, GANA Children’s Museum, Yangju
2017 POPTOPIA, Jibin Im & Hyunsu Cho, Jean Gallery, Seoul
Selected Group Exhibitions
2021 Dialogue in Art, Korea Meets Hong Kong – SHOUT Art Hub & Gallery, Hong Kong
Colourful Power, Cheonju Museum of Art, Cheonju
2019 POPCORN, Daegu Museum of Art, Daegu
Now K Art, Seoul Auction Plus Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Now K Art Vol. 2, Seoul Auction Gangnam Center, Seoul
From England in 1956 to Korean Pop Art in the Present, Koo House Museum, Yang Pyeong
Abu Dhabi Art 2019, Manarat Al Saadiyat Museum, Abu Dhabi
2018 Pyeongchang Cultural Olympiad: Paralympic Fire Art Fiesta, Gyeongpo Beach, Gangneung
Pyeongchang Cultural Olympiad: Reflections on the Aesthetics of Contemporary Art in Korea, Japan, and China, Samtan Art Mine, Jeongseon
Sweet Illusion, Art Museum VIRSI, Yongin
Art Museum by Atelier, GANA Children’s Museum, Yangju
Illuming, Dohing Art, Seoul
2017 Life Is, Topgol Museum, Seoul
Every Breath You Take, Daegu Tobacco Manufacturing, Daegu
Sense Of Space (Space + Sympathy), Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, Seoul
Omaju, GANA Children’s Museum, Yangju
2016 The Temperature of Dating, Seoul Museum, Seoul
Re_creation, Seoul Art Foundation, Seoul
2015 Autumn Contemporary Collection, Shine Artists Gallery, London
Kaleidoscope Landscape, Danwon Art Museum, Ansan
2014 Art Miami Aqua, Aqua Hotel, Miami
Spring of Yangpyeong, Yangpyeong Museum, Yangpyeong
POP POP POP, GANA Art Center, Busan
2013 Homage to Yayoi Kusama, Jean Gallery, Seoul
Listen to the Sculptures, Bupyeong Art Center, Incheon
2012 Healing Camp, GANA Art Center, Jang-heung
World of Flavor, Yangpyeong Museum, Yangpyeong
2011 Animation Characters Meet Art, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul
Light Art, Kim’s Art Field Art Museum, Busan
2010 An Exciting Art Museum: Wow! Funny Pop, Gyeongsangnam-do Provincial Art- Museum, Changwon
2009 Animamix Biennial, Shanghai MOCA, Shanghai
Residencies
2012–2021 GANA Atelier, Yangju

 

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Public Art for Everyone in Another Sense
Byung Jic Min

Jibin Im’s works stand close around us in our daily lives. In that sense, the motto “art for everyone,” meaning art that everyone can enjoy and easily empathize with, is the concept that summarizes the basis and direction of Im’s work. As such, the artist’s work keeps a certain distance from certain aspects of contemporary art that has no relevance to the lives of the public and is too serious and complicated for them to access with ease. However, it does not seem that his oeuvre turns a blind eye to serious issues and only deals with issues with superficial significance. It is true that they pursue art that everyone can easily appreciate in our everyday lives, but they are also about dreams and desires that are endlessly repeated in the contemporary capitalist society and culture as well as contradictory and conflicting values and attitudes. 

Jibin Im’s most celebrated motif, the Bearbrick figure, looks cute and familiar, and its cheerful gestures convey messages of hope as well as happy and joyful life. At the same time, however, the expressionless faces and repetitive body motions remind us of ourselves, inevitably lonely and sad, and make us think of the dark side of our own lives. In that sense, the Bearbrick figure, a comfortably accessible art toy for everyone and an important motif and starting point for the artist, is a familiar object. At the same time, however, it is a product of modern capitalism and consumer society that reveals contradictory issues of the times. It functions as an icon of modern society that is preoccupied with desire for excessive consumption and external splendor represented by luxury products. “I am Pain Because of You” series shows the artist’s awareness of such problems relevant to contemporary society. In this work, the artist calls the Bearbrick figures slaves, representing the contradictory reality faced by our contemporaries who cannot help becoming slaves to desires in this consumer capitalist society. The toy figures mirror the reality of our times that is characterized by our insatiable appetite for consumption of goods and where we are bound to suffer due to the others. Due to our endless desires, we are seduced by the aesthetics of products and the charm of consumption, becoming slaves of such desires. Our realistic selves are projected onto this toy figure. In this way, Im’s artworks have endeavored to shed light on real scenes in the contradictory lives of people today who continue to suffer and feel marginalized by the harsh reality of life. By doing so, the artist has become clearly aware that his own works should be able to offer people living unhappy lives another kind of hope, pleasure, and comfort without losing sight of reality. This fact can also be manifested in “Everywhere,” the most noted and progressive project by the artist.

The project, designed to convey the artist’s vibrant energy and warm-hearted messages to all parts of the world and everyone who is facing harsh reality, reveals the significant features of Im’s oeuvre. The essence of this project lies in turning ordinary places in our ordinary lives, regardless of their physical location, into emotionally special ones or a spacetime for art, as well as the variable mobility interlocked with artistic freedom, transmutability, and expandability in achieving such objectives. In doing so, the artist tries to transcend innumerable boundaries, another direction for contemporary art, such as the boundaries between high art and low art, pure art, and pop art, and the public and the private. In this sense, the air balloon, which has come to its present form after a variety of trials and errors, is a useful format in many ways. As it is easy to move and install thanks to its lightness and has multiple formative possibilities and variable transmutability through expansion and compression, the air balloon is particularly well suited for the artist’s pop art projects, especially the “Everywhere” project, which is designed to convey hopeful and happy messages of life to people around the world. This is the case even though it is not the artist’s most prominent artistic form. Although the “Everywhere” project can be freely moved from place to place, it does not see the world from a tourist’s perspective. The Bear Balloons often create an unusual ambience in unfamiliar urban environments, while their diverse figures, often tucked in cramped buildings in bustling urban centers, reflect the harsh reality of people today as they are forced to fit into institutional frameworks. Sometimes they accompany innocent children in shabby, rundown places, communicating the logic of hope in life, which we have no choice but to embrace, as well as showing realistic contexts provided by spaces and places. 

In that sense, it seems that the realities the artist has shown through his work are undoubtedly regrettable and contradictory. However, they are not only about dark realities that force us to give up even the possibility of hope. That is because the Bear Balloons can be compressed and contracted and at the same time are continuously expanded and moving. The Bear Balloons resemble animated characters and are quite tactile. They offer comfort and a cure for our harsh life. Such features of the Bear Balloon works can be attributed to their friendly images as art toys that people can play with as well as the characteristics of artworks designed to transform spaces by intervening in the heartless urban environments as street art. The artist does not attempt to hide such goals, and he also hopes that his work—as street art—to offer comfort and healing to people who are exhausted in the face of harsh reality.               

The artist hopes that his artworks can contribute to and benefit everyone’s life. For this reason, he is convinced that art for everyone and everywhere finally boils down to public art, which is another important value and direction pursued by contemporary art. Art’s raison d’être is not merely to offer private pleasure to few people. Art should function as public art that encourages people from all walks of life to communicate, share, and enjoy, thus benefiting everyone, and that also enabling all places to be transformed into places full of artistic sensibility. More than anything else, it seems that since Im’s artworks are not conventional and rigid, coming in the form of a friendly image easily seen in our everyday lives. Thus, they lead us to communicate with one another and stand by us as public art in another sense, to which special meaning is attached.

Public Art for Everyone in Another Sense
Byung Jic Min

Jibin Im’s works stand close around us in our daily lives. In that sense, the motto “art for everyone,” meaning art that everyone can enjoy and easily empathize with, is the concept that summarizes the basis and direction of Im’s work. As such, the artist’s work keeps a certain distance from certain aspects of contemporary art that has no relevance to the lives of the public and is too serious and complicated for them to access with ease. However, it does not seem that his oeuvre turns a blind eye to serious issues and only deals with issues with superficial significance. It is true that they pursue art that everyone can easily appreciate in our everyday lives, but they are also about dreams and desires that are endlessly repeated in the contemporary capitalist society and culture as well as contradictory and conflicting values and attitudes. 

Jibin Im’s most celebrated motif, the Bearbrick figure, looks cute and familiar, and its cheerful gestures convey messages of hope as well as happy and joyful life. At the same time, however, the expressionless faces and repetitive body motions remind us of ourselves, inevitably lonely and sad, and make us think of the dark side of our own lives. In that sense, the Bearbrick figure, a comfortably accessible art toy for everyone and an important motif and starting point for the artist, is a familiar object. At the same time, however, it is a product of modern capitalism and consumer society that reveals contradictory issues of the times. It functions as an icon of modern society that is preoccupied with desire for excessive consumption and external splendor represented by luxury products. “I am Pain Because of You” series shows the artist’s awareness of such problems relevant to contemporary society. In this work, the artist calls the Bearbrick figures slaves, representing the contradictory reality faced by our contemporaries who cannot help becoming slaves to desires in this consumer capitalist society. The toy figures mirror the reality of our times that is characterized by our insatiable appetite for consumption of goods and where we are bound to suffer due to the others. Due to our endless desires, we are seduced by the aesthetics of products and the charm of consumption, becoming slaves of such desires. Our realistic selves are projected onto this toy figure. In this way, Im’s artworks have endeavored to shed light on real scenes in the contradictory lives of people today who continue to suffer and feel marginalized by the harsh reality of life. By doing so, the artist has become clearly aware that his own works should be able to offer people living unhappy lives another kind of hope, pleasure, and comfort without losing sight of reality. This fact can also be manifested in “Everywhere,” the most noted and progressive project by the artist.

The project, designed to convey the artist’s vibrant energy and warm-hearted messages to all parts of the world and everyone who is facing harsh reality, reveals the significant features of Im’s oeuvre. The essence of this project lies in turning ordinary places in our ordinary lives, regardless of their physical location, into emotionally special ones or a spacetime for art, as well as the variable mobility interlocked with artistic freedom, transmutability, and expandability in achieving such objectives. In doing so, the artist tries to transcend innumerable boundaries, another direction for contemporary art, such as the boundaries between high art and low art, pure art, and pop art, and the public and the private. In this sense, the air balloon, which has come to its present form after a variety of trials and errors, is a useful format in many ways. As it is easy to move and install thanks to its lightness and has multiple formative possibilities and variable transmutability through expansion and compression, the air balloon is particularly well suited for the artist’s pop art projects, especially the “Everywhere” project, which is designed to convey hopeful and happy messages of life to people around the world. This is the case even though it is not the artist’s most prominent artistic form. Although the “Everywhere” project can be freely moved from place to place, it does not see the world from a tourist’s perspective. The Bear Balloons often create an unusual ambience in unfamiliar urban environments, while their diverse figures, often tucked in cramped buildings in bustling urban centers, reflect the harsh reality of people today as they are forced to fit into institutional frameworks. Sometimes they accompany innocent children in shabby, rundown places, communicating the logic of hope in life, which we have no choice but to embrace, as well as showing realistic contexts provided by spaces and places. 

In that sense, it seems that the realities the artist has shown through his work are undoubtedly regrettable and contradictory. However, they are not only about dark realities that force us to give up even the possibility of hope. That is because the Bear Balloons can be compressed and contracted and at the same time are continuously expanded and moving. The Bear Balloons resemble animated characters and are quite tactile. They offer comfort and a cure for our harsh life. Such features of the Bear Balloon works can be attributed to their friendly images as art toys that people can play with as well as the characteristics of artworks designed to transform spaces by intervening in the heartless urban environments as street art. The artist does not attempt to hide such goals, and he also hopes that his work—as street art—to offer comfort and healing to people who are exhausted in the face of harsh reality.               

The artist hopes that his artworks can contribute to and benefit everyone’s life. For this reason, he is convinced that art for everyone and everywhere finally boils down to public art, which is another important value and direction pursued by contemporary art. Art’s raison d’être is not merely to offer private pleasure to few people. Art should function as public art that encourages people from all walks of life to communicate, share, and enjoy, thus benefiting everyone, and that also enabling all places to be transformed into places full of artistic sensibility. More than anything else, it seems that since Im’s artworks are not conventional and rigid, coming in the form of a friendly image easily seen in our everyday lives. Thus, they lead us to communicate with one another and stand by us as public art in another sense, to which special meaning is attached.