KODA

2024

Kim develops a new body of wall sculptures that expands on his inquiry into queer masculinities. KODA (2024) is a thriving, enlarged transmuted flower featuring similar heart-shaped petals and a merged tentacle-like stigma. Besides resonating with the modern abbreviated form for the Native American name Dakota (Koda refers to a friend), the work title is also the artist's nostalgic encryption that encapsulates his most cherished memories of male intimacies. Although the two vivid silicone flowers interlace atypically and gradually merge into one, there is no violent engulfment nor cruel competition for nutrients, highlighting a relational form that transcends masochistic sacrifices and fixates the other as one’s object of desire. Meanwhile, the twisted, infinity sign-like stigma becomes the crucial motif that suggests how male companionships, by prioritising openness, freedom, and heterogeneity, may disrupt pre-existing normative orders and cultivate new subjectivities.