Byron Kim

Byron Kim, born in La Jolla (California), currently divides his time between New York and San Diego. After receiving his degree from Yale University in 1983, Byron continued his education at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine until 1986, and later returned to Yale in his present capacity as Senior Critic.

Using paint as medium, Byron works on series that explore how the body in its minimal expression can speak about our relationships with each other and the world at large. Formally, his work relates to the modernist legacy of abstraction, from the geometric approach of the early 20th century to the color field painters, as well as the conceptual work of Yves Klein, Blinky Palermo, Ad Reinhard, Robert Ryman, or Agnes Martin. All of whom embraced the monochrome to make other dimensions visible. With a strong connection to reality and inspiration from this rich past, Byron Kim’s paintings provide the viewer macro views into what makes us human. Synecdoche, the work that epitomized his approach, was exhibited at the seminal Whitney Biennial in 1993 and is now part of the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. This work is composed of hundreds of skin-toned 10 by 8-inch panels representing each of the people that sat in for this unique kind of portrait.

In the Flesh features three paintings from 2019’s Mud Root Ochre Leaf Star series. Following a different approach, Byron used no brushes to create these paintings. He boiled, colored, and stained raw canvas instead, using natural pigments like beet, indigo, sandalwood, and ochre. He rubbed the substrate with glue-soaked rags, creating color fields that evoke the changes of our bruised skin over time. Despite the apparent solemnity of the subject matter, the colors appear alluring, familiar, and intriguing. Inspired by Carl Philips’ poem Alba Innocence, in which the writer depicts the sun shining on a bruise on his lover’s body, rather than violence, these pieces depict the memory of our skin. Like most of Byron’s works, these abstract paintings can transport viewers on lengthier trips, suggesting celestial landscapes and the infinity of space.

Byron Kim’s work can be found in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Art, the M+ in Hong Kong, and the Tate Modern in London to name a few.

SELECTED SOLO AND TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS

2022 Drawn to Water, James Cohan, New York, NY

2019 The Sunday Paintings, MOCA Cleveland, Cleveland, OH

2018 Byron Kim: Sunday Paintings, 1/7/01 – 2/11/18, James Cohan, New York, NY

Sky, Kukje Gallery, Seoul, Korea

2016 Byron Kim: Mud Root Ochre Leaf Star, James Cohan, New York, NY

2015 Pond Lily Over Mushroom Cloud: Byron Kim Adapts the Black on Black Cosmology of Maria

Martinez, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA

2013 Spencer Finch & Byron Kim: Day and Night, James Cohan Gallery, Shanghai, China

2012 The Sunday Paintings, Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, OH

2011 Byron Kim, James Cohan Gallery, New York, NY

Byron Kim, PKM Gallery, Seoul, South Korea

2008 Irwin’s Disc, The U.N. Building, and Other Paintings, Max Protetch Gallery, New York, NY

2006 Threshold, Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA; traveled to Samsung Museum of Modern Art, Rodin Gallery, Seoul, South Korea; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA; Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina Greensboro, NC; Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, WA; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AZ; Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2005 Oddly Flowing, Max Protetch Gallery, New York, NY

2004 Permanent, Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2001 Max Protetch Gallery, New York, NY

1999 Whitney Phillip Morris: wall drawings by Byron Kim, Whitney Museum of American Art at Phillip Morris, New York, NY

Roche's Point Studies, Max Protetch Gallery, New York, NY

1998 Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL

Byron Kim: Process, Hatton Gallery, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO

1997 I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, Max Protetch Gallery, New York, NY

1996 Grey-Green, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.

Baumgartner Galleries, Washington, D.C., Dieu Donne Papermill, New York, NY

1995 Korea Arts Foundation of America, Los Angeles, CA

Kiang Gallery, Atlanta, GA

1994 Matrix 125, Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, CT

Galerie Francesca Pia, Bern, Switzerland

Max Protetch Gallery, New York, NY

1993 Baumgartner Galleries, Washington, DC

Byron Kim and Glenn Ligon, AC Project Room, New York, NY

1992 Max Protetch Gallery, New York, NY

Byron Kim and Kiki Smith, A/C Project Room, New York, NY

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SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2022 Us Them We: Race Ethnicity Identity, Worcester Art Museum, Clark University, Worcester, MA

2021 8 Americans, Chart Gallery, New York, NY

Atmospheres: The Pace Staff Show, Pace Gallery, New York, NY

The Slipstream: Reflection, Resilience, and Resistance in the Art of Our Time, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY

Artists and the Rothko Chapel: 50 Years of Inspiration, Moody Center for the Arts, Houston, TX

2020 Unconstrained Textiles: Stitching Methods, Crossing Ideas, Tsuen Wan, Hong Kon

Making Community: Prints from Brandywine Workshop and Archives, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA

2019 James Cohan: Twenty Years, James Cohan, New York, NY

This Skin of Ours, Miller Institute for Contemporary Art, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

Weather Report: Art and Atmosphere, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT

Borders, James Cohan, New York, NY

2018 Gwangju Biennale 18, Gwangju, Korea

2017 Cheap Suitcase, Ron Athey, Genesis BREYER P-ORRIDGE, COUM Transmissions,

Bob Flanagan/Sheree Rose/Mike Kelley, Clarity Haynes, Byron Kim,

June Yong Lee, Bob Mizer, Catherine Opie, Ariana Page Russell,

Hannah Wilke, and Rona Yefman, Invisible Exports, New York, NY

Blue Black, curated by Glenn Ligon, Pulitzer Arts, St. Louis, MO

2016 5th Anyang Public Art Project, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea,

Certain Skins, James Cohan Gallery, New York, NY

This Is a Portrait If I Say So: Identity in American Art, 1912-Today, Bowdoin Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME  

Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney Collection, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

2015 Immersed, Linda Pace Foundation Gallery, San Antonio, TX

Glenn Ligon: Encounters and Collisions, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK;

traveled to Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, UK  

The Untold Want, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, Ireland  

Sharjah Biennial 12: The past, the present, the possible, Sharjah, UAE  

Come As You Are: Art of the 1990s, Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ

2013 Eye to i: 3,000 Years of Portraiture, Katonah Museum of Art, Westchester, NY

Skin: an Artistic Atlas, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, Ireland

NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star, New Museum, New York, NY

Day after Day: The Diaristic Impulse, University Art Museum, University at Albany,

State University of New York, Albany, NY

2012 Radical Terrain, Rubin Museum, New York, NY The Very Large Array: San Diego/Tijuana Artists in the MCA Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA

Time-Lapse, SITE Sante Fe, Sante Fe, NM

2011 Time Flies, Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Two Colors Two Colors, Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts & Elizabeth Ivers Gallery, New York, NY

2009 Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to Today, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

Haegang Ceramic Museum, Incheon Metropolitan City, South Korea

2008 Patterns for Living, Queens, NY

7th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea

Abstraction Imagination, PKM Trinity Gallery, Seoul, South Korea

Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

2007 Oustide the Box, Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Void in Korean Art, Leeum – Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea

Like Color in Pictures, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO

Not for Sale, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, NY

2006 The Bong Show or This Is Not A Pipe, Leslie Artworks + Projects, New York, NY

Gifts Go in One Direction, Apexart, New York, NY

New Now Next – The Contemporary Blanton, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX

Work in Progress, DUMBO Arts Centre, Brooklyn, NY

Frontiers – Collecting the Art of Our Time, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA

2005 Collection Remixed, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, NY

2004 Specific Objects – The Minimalist Influence, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Jolla, CA

2003 Visualizing Identity, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX

Approaching Objects, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Somewhere Better Than This Place: Alternative Social Experience in the Spaces of Contemporary

Art, The Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH

Whiteness, A Wayward Construction, Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA

2002 Skin, Museé de la Civilisation, Québec, Canada

Family Ties, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA

Mask or Mirror? A Play of Portraits, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA

Group Exhibition, Nicole Klagsburn Gallery, New York, NY

2001 American Tableaux, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN

Claude Monet and the Modern Age, Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich,

Germany and Fondation Beyeler, Riehen, Switzerland

Here and Now, Zacheta National Gallery, Warsaw, Poland and Arsenal Gallery, Bialystok, Poland

It’s Not What You See: Perverting Minimalism, Reina Sofia, Spain

Here and Now, National Gallery, Warsaw, Poland

2000 Good Business is the Best Art, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY

3rd Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea

Sonje Art Center, Seoul, South Korea

KOREAMERICAKOREA, Artsonje Center, Seoul, South Korea and Artsonje Museum, Gyeongju, South Korea

1999 Drawing for the Present Tense, Parsons School of Design, New York, NY

Negotiating Small Truths, Blanton Museum, University of Texas at Austin, TX  

Between the Unknown Straits - art Now in Japan and Korea, Meguro Museum of Art,

Tokyo, Japan; National Museum of Art, Osaka, and the Korean Culture and Art Foundation, Seoul, South Korea

Waxing Poetic: Encaustic Art in America, Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ and

Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, TN

Contemporary Collectors XIV, Museum of Contemporary art San Diego, La Jolla, CA

1998 Kiki Smith, Byron Kim, Anne Chu, A/C Project Room, New York, NY

Space/Sight/Self, Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, IL

Formal Innovations: Reworking Minimalism in the 1990s, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI

From Here to Eternity: Painting in 1998, Max Protetch Gallery, New York, NY

100 Years of Sculpture: From the Pedestal to the Pixel, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN

After the Fall: Aspects of Abstract Painting Since 1970, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island, NY

T-Race, Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago, IL

1996 Face to Face: Recent Abstract Painting, List Visual Arts Center, MIT, Cambridge, MA

Face Value, Wexner Center, Columbus, OH

Screen, Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York, NY

Works on Paper, Max Protetch Gallery, New York, NY

Contemporaneous, Newlyn Art Gallery, Newlyn, Penzance, UK

A Glimpse of the Norton Collection As Revealed by Kim Dingle, Site Santa Fe, NM

1995 The Figure/The Body, American Art: 1945-1995, Museum of American Art,

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia, PA

Art at the Edge: Tampering: Artists & Abstraction Today, High Museum, Atlanta, GA

Sites of Being, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA

25 Americans: Painting in the 90s, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI

Face Value: American Portraits, Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY

Modesty, A Policy: Junge Malerie aus New York, Galerie Sfeir-Semler, Kiel, Germany

Works on Paper, Todd Gallery, London, UK

Critical Distance: Between Art and Architecture, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase

College, SUNY, Purchase, NY  

1994 Pleasant Pebble, The Work Space at Dolgenos, Newman and Cronin, New York, NY

Stories, Max Protetch Gallery, New York, NY

Practice Ground, Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, Canada

Drama, Max Protetch Gallery, New York, NY

1993 New Sculpture: Soft Surfaces, Transamerica Pyramid Lobby Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Spheres of Influence: Artists and their Students in the Permanent Collection of the Whitney  

Museum of American Art, Whitney Museum of American Art at Champion, Stamford, CT

Markets of Resistance, White Columns, New York, NY

American Academy Invitational, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY

Prospect 1993, Frankfurter Kustverein, Frankfurt, Germany

Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Skin Deep, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY

Physical Evidence, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY and Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, NY

1992 Sleeping with The Enemy: A Theory on the Persistence of Dialects, Four Walls, Brooklyn, NY

Contemporary Surfaces, Pamela Auchincloss Gallery, New York, NY

Cultural Abstraction, John Good Gallery, New York, NY

Seventeen, 500 Greenwich, New York, NY

Slow Art, P.S. 1 Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art, Queens, NY

1991 Color Theory, SUNY Old Westbury, Long Island, NY

Salvage Utopia, AC Project Room, New York, NY

The Naked and The Raw, P.S. 122, New York, NY

Race and Culture, 494 Gallery and C.C.N.Y. Gallery, New York, NY

1990 Micro-Colonization, AC Project Room, New York, NY

A Question of Paint, Hallwalls, Buffalo, NY

Artists in the Marketplace, The Bronx Museum, Bronx, NY

China: June 4, 1989, organized by Asian American Arts Centre, P.S. 1, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Queens, NY  

1989 China: June 4, 1989, organized by Asian American Arts Centre, Blum Helman Warehouse, New York, NY

Skowhegan Faculty and Staff Exhibition, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME  and

Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME

1988 34th Annual Juried Exhibition, Art Institute at the San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA

Yesterday: Reflections on Childhood, Asian American Arts Centre, New York, NY

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PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY

Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL

Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA

Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX

Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY

Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C.

John’s Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD

Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, CA

Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA

Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Norton Family Collection, Santa Monica, CA

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.

Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, CT

Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN

Washington Project for the Arts, Washington D.C.

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA

2021 Josenhans, Frauke, ed., Artists and the Rothko Chapel: 50 Years of Inspiration, Moody

Center for the Arts, Houston, TX

2013 Finley, Jean, ed. Day after Day: The Diaristic Impulse. Albany: University Art Museum,

2012 Citron, Beth. Modernist Art from India: The Body Unbound, Approaching Abstraction, Radical Terrain. New York: Rubin Museum of Art, 2012.  

2011 Dow, Mark and Hinton, David. Byron Kim: Dark. New York: James Cohan Gallery;

Seoul: PKM Trinity Gallery, 2011.