Byron Kim: Threshold 1990-2004

For the past decade, Byron Kim has maintained a steadfast commitment to exploring the potential for content in abstract painting. Kim's work reflects his attraction to the postwar tradition of monochromatic painting, exemplified by Ad Reinhardt's black paintings and Brice Marden's fields of color. While Kim incorporates the visual language of color and abstraction, he also addresses cultural and personal issues, positioning himself closely with many of his contemporaries, including Glenn Ligon and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Like Ligon and Gonzalez-Torres, Kim has invested the formal strategies of the 1960s, such as seriality and grids, with private and political significance; the end result resonates with elegance and emotional complexity. Threshold provides an overview of Kim's career from several vantage points: a curatorial essay by Eugenie Tsai on the concept of “threshold” in Kim's work, a conversation with Constance Lewallen, Glenn Ligon, Janine Antoni and Kim on the 1990s art world, an essay on color theory and color in Kim's work by art historian Anoka Faruqee, and a new photo and text project by Kim himself. The publication of Threshold precedes the touring of a major exhibition of Kim's work, which will open at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in the fall of 2004 and travel throughout the U.S. for two years.