ZIN Kijong Zin: On Air

“Since innocent childhood, we watch TV, and it’s through the TV we knew of the world. We learn about the ‘world’ with the information provided by the small frame of fool box. Even if it’s far from the truth, but more over, manipulated.”
-Zin Kijong

Arario Seoul is hosting the first solo exhibition of their artist Kijong Zin. Zin is a young media installation artist born in 1981 with the BFA at Kyungwon University and has already participated in selected group exhibitions with his assignment work at the college called “World Map of Corpse”. The series of this exhibition is an extended version of the work shown at the exhibitions “Yeol” of Insa Art Space and “Korean Young Artists” of National Museum of Contemporary Art. The series that included mainstream media logos such as CNN, National Geographic and Discovery is now extended with five new additional channels.

The series inspired by the mere curiosity from childhood, “Are people of black-and-white TV really black-and-white?” questions the unilateral communication and the manipulation of the media using the popular tool called “TV” and the co-existence of truth and falsity that lies within. The eight channels that took the role of unilateral speaker has been exquisitely matched up with sensational incidents; CNN with 9.11 terror, Aljazeera with bombing of the Bagdad Iraq, false set-up of nature documentary with National Geographic, mystery of man-landing-on-moon with Discovery, Dr. Hwang Woosuk’s false DNA Tests of Stem Cells with YTN, mystery of the century with History Channel and sports car commercial with Mercedez-Benz. All channels have been set-up and are . The appearance of a director behind the eight channels, who can be referred to a predator of the media cycle, reveals the fact that even the process of this very exposure is manipulated by the director’s intensions.

The reason for Kijong Zin’s work coming into spotlight is because of his brilliant sense of imagination and its way of transforming the most serious subject into a humorous idea. The young artist’s sensibility is especially evident in his debuting photographs dealing with the same themes from his installation works, but successfully reinterpreting using a different media.

Reality and fiction, control over the information gap, self identity of digital era, power structure… Kijong Zin’s works are full of sophisticated gestures that stimulate the sensibility and mentality of the people today. At the broadcasting studio-turned-ARARIO SEOUL, a young artist’s ambitious debuting exhibition, that suggests an amusing role of art, can be discovered.