The bottles
︎DE
The bottles digital print, 2018
Soft drinks, beers, and juices - everything you would expect in a kiosk. They are nicely lined up and advertised by posters that are hung on the wall in front of a kiosk. What could be more pleasant than a cold, refreshing drink after a long, hot day? The drinks on display, however, should probably not be drunk. What puts a smile on our dry lips is actually washing-up liquid. blue, yellow, orange and clear detergent.
The series “Rinsing” is a continuation of works that revolve around food. Whereas Min Kim observed the traces of leftover food on plates in earlier works, the “washing up” work is in contrast to this. These traces are lost through rinsing: rinsing, as in dissolution of what once was. The artist used around 50 bottles of washing-up liquid for her work.
These were tilted, set up and used for painting. The lines that can be seen on the surfaces go from yellow to transparent. The artist poured the remnants of the washing-up liquid into common beverage bottles, the original contents of which ultimately resemble the washing-up liquid in color.
The camouflage effect in Kim’s work does not require an invisibility cloak or a pattern. The artist plays with the routines of our perception. Demanding and expecting in a capitalist world of abundance, one does not worry about the content of what one eats. Admittedly, bottles containing washing-up liquid are an exaggerated illustration in this case. But can someone say exactly which additives and supplements are in the industrially produced foods that we all love to eat?
Kim’s work is becoming more ironic, especially when it comes to a challenge on the Internet that was about eating Tide Pods, or detergent capsules. As superficially as people are, the drinks on display (or detergent capsules) are not questioned. The mimesis is as subliminal as it is obvious: “what is in the bottle will probably correspond to the label.”
- Jonas Maaßberg
The exhibition SPIN JOHN is from the project “Artists in the City” in cooperation with HBK Braunschweig (Prof. Dr. Thomas Becker) and Kunstverein Braunschweig e.V. (Nele Kaczmarek) The exhibition was held in a former kiosk and in a former toilet in Augusttorwall 5.
