Atta Kim: The Museum Project

In The Museum Project, Korean artist Atta Kim commandeers average scenes - city streets, department stores, freight depots, and forests - and turns them into exhibition spaces. On display are people crammed into acrylic boxes, stacked in sets, on end, or sometimes alone. The overall project is comprised of a number of series, such as "War Veteran," "Sex," "Suicide," and other human typologies, each intended to highlight a particular mode of behavior or belief.Kim compares his efforts to that of an archaeologist, sifting through the cultural strata in order to unearth and uphold exemplary objects for our contemplation. The trajectory of the work is cyclical and evolving; in the final series, "Salvation" and "Nirvana," the subjects begin to emerge from their plastic cases, and the societal categories explored in the previous work give way to a study of religious iconography and the human f