YONG NAM KIM “COME ACROSS” EXHIBITION AT GALLERIA ROSSANA ORLANDI

Images courtesy of Galleria Rossana Orlandi

Curated by Maria Vittoria Baravelli

Yong Nam Kim’s exhibition, Come Across, is a unique and powerful exploration of the relationship between objects, culture, and memory. This South Korean artist uses furniture as a symbolic and poetic medium to shape the invisible, including memories, emotions, and cultural genealogies. Kim’s works are deeply personal and open to a universal gaze, with her work being rooted in tradition but expanding gracefully outward.

Yong Nam Kim, Pagoda Shred, 2023, vetro, pietre, autobiografia sminuzzata, 53,3×53,3×112,5 cm

The exhibition, hosted at Galleria Rossana Orlandi during Milan Design Week 2025, is conceived as a passage through an intimate, personal, and collective dimension. Each piece begins with a written thought, reflecting on the viewer’s thoughts and feelings. The furniture becomes three-dimensional organisms, like glass and metal towers, that celebrate a silent ritual. The exhibition opens with Pagoda Oseck, which features five transparent containers, an evocation of Eastern philosophy’s five elements, colors, and directions.

Yong Nam Kim, Pagoda Oseak, 2025, vetro con applicazioni in ottone verniciato con lacca tradizionale coreana (Ottchil), 95x53x114,5cm

Presented by Coulisse | INK

Kim’s artistic gesture is also cultural and political, reflecting on social structures that still shape roles, desires, and obligations. The Ham, once used for bridal dowries, is emptied, made transparent, and engraved with plants and birds, suggesting a sense of the sacred and ritual that feels more instinctual than declared.

Yong Nam Kim, Jang 2, 2021, vetro con applicazioni in ottone verniciato con lacca tradizionale coreana (Ottchil, 77x39x136 cm

Effort and repetition become languages in Kim’s work, with the traditional Korean lacquer technique known as Ottchil being both process and testimony. The exhibition concludes with Reflection 2, a large installation composed of five glass wardrobes and an antique red piece, inviting reflection on the dialogue between transparency and opacity, past and present, fragility and permanence.

Yong Nam Kim, Colors of Memories 2, 2024, pietre rivestite di Ottchil in teca di vetro, 61,5×61,5×41,8H cm

To explore Come Across, the viewer is invited to experience an encounter with matter that speaks to us of absence, presence, and desire. The design does not decorate but questions and the object contains us.

Yong Nam Kim, Soban, 2021, tavolo in vetro inciso, D43xH20 cm | Soban, 2023, tavolo in vetro inciso, 40×30,6xH24, 7 cm

Yong Nam Kim, Ham camo, 2022, lastre di metallo su vetrine incise, 130x73x167 cm