How do we represent transformation—not just visually, but viscerally? Korean artist Kim Jongku proposes one answer in The Divine Comedy, his new solo exhibition at AP SPACE in New York, on view through April 28. Drawing from Dante Alighieri’s iconic literary voyage, Jongku trades allegory for abstraction, building a deeply human story told through rusted steel, layered texture, and emotional resonance.
Courtesy of AP Space
For Jongku, the poetic and the material are often inseparable. In this latest body of work, he reimagines Dante’s Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso as a language of fragmentation and reconstruction, giving form to the internal transitions we sometimes struggle to name: grief, reckoning, repair, and the fragile arrival of clarity.
The show opens with Inferno, a meditation on rupture. Rather than literal fire-and-brimstone, Jongku’s hell is psychic. Raw steel panels, distressed and oxidized, hang like unhealed wounds. The marks aren’t decorative—they are scars, created by intentional corrosion over time. These pieces invite viewers to confront discomfort without spectacle. They don’t shout; they hum with tension. The materials feel heavy, but the weight is emotional as much as physical.
Moving into Purgatorio, we enter a threshold. There’s a perceptible lightness here—not in palette, but in composition. Works begin to open up. Lines soften, space emerges between elements, and the eye begins to breathe. It’s a visual metaphor for what healing can feel like: incremental, uncertain, nonlinear. Jongku doesn’t romanticize recovery. Instead, he acknowledges it as a process, as patience, as presence.
By the time we arrive at Paradiso, the work has shifted—but not completely. There’s no dramatic ascension, no golden resolution. The rust remains. But here, it gleams differently. Materials harmonize rather than resist. Fragments settle into dialogue with each other. The spiritual dimension of the show comes into focus: not in escape from pain, but in the integration of it.
Photo Courtesy: AP Space
What holds this exhibition together is Jongku’s deep commitment to material metaphor. His use of rust isn’t just aesthetic—it’s symbolic. Rust becomes a timeline, a marker of change, a reminder that beauty can emerge from what has weathered. In Jongku’s hands, decay is not death—it is a testament to transformation. His works are not static. They breathe. They shift with light, with proximity, with time.
The other conceptual thread is resonance, not as sound, but as echo. Each piece carries an afterimage, an emotional vibration that lingers beyond its form. This is particularly felt in Jongku’s more minimalist works, where negative space becomes as important as material presence. These pieces ask you to slow down, to feel before interpreting. The result is an exhibition that resists immediate gratification and instead rewards contemplative engagement.
Photo Courtesy: AP Space
Jongku has long operated at the intersection of philosophy, materiality, and visual poetics. His previous work—particularly his iron powder calligraphic pieces—has challenged conventional divisions between sculpture, painting, and language. But The Divine Comedy feels like a mature synthesis of his past practices. It’s rawer, more emotionally intimate, and arguably more relevant than ever.
In a moment where the art world often prizes instant impact or political literalism, Jongku offers an alternative: introspection. The Divine Comedy doesn’t impose meaning—it holds space for it. It invites the viewer to bring their own infernos, their own purgatories, and to find resonance in the quiet triumphs of survival.
What makes this exhibition so compelling is its refusal to resolve. Even in Paradiso, there is no finality—only suggestion. Jongku’s paradise is imperfect, unfinished, still in dialogue with rust. It’s an invitation to keep going, to keep evolving, to stay open.
Kim Jongku’s The Divine Comedy is not a retelling. It’s a rethinking. And in doing so, it offers a rare kind of grace—one that doesn’t demand transcendence, but suggests that the path itself may be the transformation.
The Divine Comedy
By Kim Jongku
AP SPACE, 555 W 25th Street, New York, NY
On view through April 28, 2025 | Tuesday–Saturday, 11 AM–6 PM
Published by Jeremy S.
