Purple Television

[October 10 2013] : art

Sandy Kim, 2013 by Ever Gold Gallery and Sandy Kim

This film documents Sandy Kim’s exhibition at Ever Gold Gallery in San Francisco held from September 5th – October 5th 2013.

Sandy Kim is one of those artists who gets a lot of hate on the internet. By “hate” I mean a form of dot-eyed text-based hysteria that can only exist when someone solely interfaces with the world through a blog without fear of interpersonal reality. Sometimes these rants reveal rage fueled by a rather boring sadness: “I hate Sandy Kim, and sure, maybe its just because I want to be famous for taking photos of me having period-blood sex with my hot musician boyfriend.” This otherwise pathetic comment actually has its finger on the pulse of what’s interesting about her work—why people love and hate it—it’s that Sandy Kim loves living her life. Her photographs are a by-product of having a good time. It is not their focus. That Kim has an innate and playful understanding of light, color, and composition matters only to the extent that it allows her to make images conveying something of what she feels.

Taken as a collection, her photographs show a specific way of being, one possibility for inhabiting in the world—the potential embodied at any given moment by the people and places around her. What enrages some spectators is that her images say: “I’m doing what I want, and so can you!” That the people in her photographs are themselves interesting artists makes sense because people find each other, creating “artist families,” (one day a major retrospective book from this period could be called FAMILY ALBUM.) Sandy Kim is one of those photographers whose importance will become increasingly apparent with time, when the immediate jealously of those not invited to the party fades, and the talents of her generation—the artists, writers, musicians that surround her—begin to fully flower.

– Jarrett Earnest

Courtesy of Ever Gold Gallery and Sandy Kim

Music by Sonny and the Sunsets