Artist Bio
William Kim
April 2026William Kim is an interdisciplinary artist and community-builder They hold a MFA from Pratt Institute, a BFA from Universität der Künste Berlin, K-Arts Seoul and École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs Paris. Kim's nomadic practice invites us into ephemeral daydreams, commemoration of childhood and nostalgic tales of happening, sculpture, sound, photography, video, spoken word and play. Their work orchestrates ambiguous scenes born between alienation and kinship, departure and homecoming, danger and shelter.Kim has been featured in Synchron Magazine (2021) and Artforum (2024). In 2021 they collaborated with Klára Hosnedlová for the Baltic Triennial. In Fall 2023 they moved from Berlin to New York. In September 2024, they presented their first New York solo show at Sarahcrown Gallery in Tribeca. Kim continuously self-publishes picture books (2019-ongoing), and produces audible tales in yearlong kinship with DJ Love Unlimited, DJ Park3r and x3butterfly. Kim independently curates and works for the artist-run, non-profit organization Tiger Strikes Asteroid New York.Today Kim lives in LA.

CV William Kim
*1997 DEEDUCATION
2026- Teaching Artist at Daniel Webster Middle School, USA
2025-2026 Teaching Artist at Brentwood School, Los Angeles, USA
2024-2025 Co-director at Tiger Strikes Asteroid New York, USA
2024-2025 Coordinator of Visiting Artist Lecture Series, Pratt Institute, USA
2023-2025 MFA, Pratt Institute, USA
2020 MFA, École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs Paris, FR
2019 MFA, K-Arts Seoul, KOR
2018 MFA, Universität der Künste Berlin, DE
2016-2022 MFA, Hochschule Bildende Künste Braunschweig, DESCHOLARSHIPS
2025 Pratt Graduate Student Engagement Fellowship
2023-2025 Pratt Graduate Fellowship Pratt
2023-2025 Daad Fellowship
2024 Pratt Outstanding Merit Award
2024 Pratt Graduate Student Engagement Fellowship
2020-2021 Erasmus+ UAL London
2020-2021 Erasmus+ ENSAD Paris
2019-2020 Asem-Duo K-Arts Seoul
2019-2020 Daad Fellowship
2019 DeutschlandstipendiumTEACHING
2025
SAIC, AICAD Finalist for Adjunct Teaching Position, Professorship
2024
color your life, Auburn Assessment Center, New York, Workshop
be real be smart, Serving The People New York, Panel Discussion
minimum two ideally never, Sarah Crown Gallery, New York, Lecture
2023-2025 crit club, Pratt Institute, Coordinator
2023 loopholes4Life, Pratt Institute New York, Lecture
2020 class sculpture, Prof. Alain Declercq, Teaching Assistant
2019 class sculpture, Prof. Ahn Kyu Chul, Teaching Assistant
the seen vs. the seem, Seoul National University, Lecture
2018 towards touch, Ricarda Huch School, Workshop
2017 class conceptual painting, Prof. Frances Scholz, Teaching Assistant
performance arts, Ricarda Huch School, Lecture
hovering homes, Ricarda Huch School, LectureRESIDENCIES
2025
Antazaves gamtininku ir menininku namai, Artist in Residence, LT
2024
Žeimiai Manor House, Artist in Residence, LT
Cope NYC, Artist in Residence, USAEXHIBITIONS
2026
grit of hearth beyond the brambles, Field of Play, New York, USA, G
2025
prisma, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, New York, USA, G
agape, The Source, New York, USA, G
as if it is, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, New York, USA, G
hidden hues, Dean's Office, New York, USA, G
dazzling wings, Trapezraum Zurich, CHE, G
alwaysaltogetheragain, Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York, USA, S
2024
the people’s agenda, Priv.y Gallery, New York, USA, G
other places 他の場所, Other Places Art Fair, Tokyo, JPN, G
tranquil, Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York, USA, G
minimum two ideally never, Sarah Crown Gallery, New York, USA, S
treasure hunt, DeKalb Gallery, New York, USA, G
chainletter, Steuben Gallery, New York, USA, G
tale train, ARC Photography Gallery, New York, USA, G
summer creek show, Newtown Creek Nature Walk, New York, USA, G
chthonic panic, The Source, New York, USA, G
site 003 Grass Stains, Cooper Park, New York, USA, G
that water never shows its edges, Palmetto, New York, USA, G
15 years, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Los Angeles, USA, G
go say hello to the world and lick a lollipop, Accelerator, New York, USA, S
coalesce, Accelerator, New York, USA, G
2023
52 pick up, Accelerator, New York, USA, G
across or apart, Studio 94, New York, USA, S
2022
even islands are connected - Montagehalle, Braunschweig, DE, S
JR7, Zwischenraum, Hannover, DE, G
2020
dans une impasse - gallerie Elda Mazer, Paris, FR, S
2019
not a leaf on the water - B1 Gallery, Seoul, KOR, S
no vignette blue enough - Rainbow Cube Gallery, Seoul, KOR, S
2 - Cyart Cube, Seoul, KOR, S
under the blue sky and the Stars - HfK Bremen, Bremen, DE, G
a birdcage without a bird - Offspace, Brunswick, DE, S
tryingtriangles - B1 Gallery, Seoul, KOR, G
one and an other are another - ad ad, Hannover, GER, G
2018
suche schlafplatz, relativ dringend - Satelit, Brunswick, DE, S
toi et moi – ISDAT , Toulouse, FR, G
24 days flightmode – J3FM, Hannover, DE, S
every always – Galerija Contra, Zagreb, HRV, G
relativ dauerhaft - Showroom Karlsplatz, Vienna, AT, S
closed only - Galerie Paida, Bremen, DE, S
2017
nicht da – Apartment, Hannover, DE, G
28/22 – Schnittraum, Brunswick, DE, G
let us rain – Kulturzentrum Hallenbad, Wolfsburg, DE, G
G (Group), S (Solo)CURATION
2024
chainletter, Steuben Gallery New York, USA, G
treasure hunt, DeKalb Gallery, New York, USA, G
tale train, ARC Photography Gallery, New York, USA, G
summer creek show, Newtown Creek Nature Walk, New York, USA, G
no reasons for such moments to end, Sarah Crown Gallery, New York, USA, G
that water never shows its edges, Palmetto, New York, USA, G
2023
coalesce, Accelerator, New York, USA, G
2022
JR7, Zwischenraum, Hannover, DE, GPUBLICATIONS
2025
cuyana magazine, Berline, DE
2024
apocalypse magazine, Paris, FR
2022
even islands are connected *
unknown tale *
long ago like yesterday *
another night on my own *
2021
synchron magazine, Berlin, DE
2020
intermezzo *
i'm not able to understand the distance between me and things *
Île *
taleonlywill or neveranymore *
dabar sasara *
2019
not a leaf on the water *
wet sand *
another 12 *
one and another are another, Berlin, DE
*self publishedPRESS
2025 www.artspiel.org/community-at-field-of-play/
2024 www.sarahcrown.com/minimum-twoCONTACTS OF REFERENCES
Jean Shin Professor Class Professional Practices, Independent Study
Carlos Motta Professor Class Studio Interdisciplinary Practice
Alex Strada Professor Class Social Practice

by Mia Pattillo
on william kim solo show
minimum two ideally never
2024A street is a narrative we swallow as children. It begins all silhouette, with insides still fragmented: chalk-dust dreams, scooter-swift freedom. Threads us into cotton-candy pinks and blues. We have carried its syllables since our knees first kissed this pavement.
To unravel our narrative, we must first know the city street’s corners. The in-between spaces that no one claims. Where nothing is happening but everything. A life comes untethered in the pinprick of a balloon. In the crash of a pigeon’s ledge, in the quiet snap of a bicycle spoke. Spaces of disruption and defiance. Sometimes it helps to look for it in a discarded vehicle, where motion catches in arrest. To find mine, I followed bicycle spokes to their center, traced their rust-suspended spin. Perhaps I am still learning to unwrite the script of nostalgia, to scrape away the calluses of remembered streets. To reconfigure a narrative, after all, one must first unconfigure it. Perhaps I am still learning to find a pulse.A narrative is a street that begins boundaried in. But there is something I want to tell you unboundaried by coherence. I want to shout it into the edges of yearning, toes curled in the urban grime. If it is yearning that I carry, then I carry its coins spilled heavy, in a chest too full for my lungs. So I am learning to speak to the corners. So I borrow the mouth of a pigeon. I am learning to say: a new composition of intimacy. I am learning to say: we.
If we are more than a silhouette of our identity… In our chests we harbor both a belonging and an unbelonging. Sometimes we trace their fraying seams in letters that sparkle, white facades yielding to confetti-veined calligraphy. Sometimes it helps to remember the light that fractures outside the front threshold, eight-ish blocks from Elizabeth St. Garden, then trickles slowly toward you, two floors up, until the small room warps into a ghostly cocoon of layered pasts.Sometimes, in order to belong somewhere, you must first belong nowhere. Listen to the cadence of footsteps at night. At night, we are rendered no more regal than pigeons. At night, a breath that drifts through the streets is steered only by the heartbeat of the moon, and a body that walks through the streets sloughs off as much as it gathers: forgotten routes, whispered confessions. Desires to be whole. To touch something that has been timeworn by the proximity of a stranger's body is to know that each groove in its spine, each weathered handle, houses the vestiges of a former existence: a corporeal intimacy. What echoes, what likeness, what manner of correspondence might we find inscribed? We seek our narrative in rain-slick streets where solace collides with kinship: adrift yet anchored, forgotten yet flash-fixed. We are, if anything evermore, in tension with the city that shapes us. A relation of shadow bodies.Forget a narrative of belonging—what I yearn for is transformation. Marrow-deep metamorphosis, thrumming with the chaos and boldness of early scooter wobbles, the anarchy and purity of playground symphonies. Outgrown dreams casting long shadows over chalk-drawn hopscotch squares, roots spanning time so the fingers of our youth can stretch—and then touch—for just one fleeting moment. So let us be caught between worlds, childhood alleyways blurred into the pavement beneath our feet like tinny laughter played back on old cassettes. Our memories are always kaleidoscoping into fragments even as they crystallize into identity. The sound of a metal can kicked down a street is often the sound that resonates most deeply. That echoes most true. Each time it comes, I realize I have been waiting all along, listening with my cheek pressed to the asphalt.

+++

by Sarah Conlisk
on william kim solo show
minimum two ideally never
2024
Possibly the best–– and certainly the only graceful — way to experience Minimum Two, Ideally Never is to get on your butt and scoot around the floor. “Scoot”, is a verb that, if it feels you have aged out of, is the perfect introduction to the other verbs present in the scene: the balloons dangle, the bikes snuggle, the legs amble, one scooters reclines on another, photos are poured over, confetti somersaults through words, birds hideout above it all.  Verbs that remind your body - even more than your mind - of what it was once like as a child to exist in the world.Remembering how it used to be via objects is hardly a new practice. That’s archeology, whose formal definition - “the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture” - is a reasonable analogy for Kim’s approach to their dig site, the street, where relics of children’s past are plucked, dusted off, and examined for insight. Bikes and balloons are Kim’s blunted arrowheads and broken pottery, doodling a historical record of “play”.   And despite archeology’s formal perch on the ivory tower, it’s a widely beloved and personal practice. All of us have wandered through antique stores and sifted through old photographs, learning from and taking comfort in the “what once was” objects. Look at this! I wonder what it used to be. Can you believe your hair back then? Archeology generally exists on the upside, suspending one in the warm glow of remember when.  But Kim is no archeologist– Kim is an artist, and excavation is just the first step. After that, the familiar objects are altered and reconfigured to new forms, extending the material record into a conceptual one. The concept in question: companionship. A quick glance around the room, you’ll notice there are very few soloists in the show, with most objects performing in duets and occasionally choruses. In every instance, they are defined by their relationship to their partner(s): Consider, for instance, if there was just one bike— it would look random, ridiculous, out of place. Or if there was just one person sitting on the rock — well then, the back might as well be another rock. By themselves, these objects do not demand interrogation. But once there are multiple, we are quick to anthropomorphize a relationship, and the infinity that exists within it.Kim asks “What did it mean to be a child, amongst others?”–– and the obvious follow up for any no-longer-child: “Do I want that back? Is that even possible?” From afar, you might think you know the answer. Kim’s selection of objects triggers a quick nostalgia – you miss the companioned activities of childhood. Of course. We all do.
But scoot closer.Upon inspection, you see that two bikes are mangled, made defunct by their insistence on being a unit. Two scooters, likewise caught in a perpetual tug of war, insist against each other, going nowhere. Twelve yellow balloons queue up with uniform saccharine grins, static, ever threatened from pigeon repelling spikes just below. In one photograph, a table with two chairs sits vacant, aloof in their knowledge that no one person would dare sit there, alone. In another, two backs sit atop a rock, less than an inches from each other but never– no never–– touching, in accordance with, of course, no homo. Meanwhile, in a video, a pair of legs adopts a can to punt alongside, always on the verge of leaving it behind. And above, two pigeons angle towards each other, while another sits a little way off, in an unmistakable formation: exclusion. The effect is to usher in a new roster of verbs, with more sinister connotations: “retreat”, “struggle”, “conform”, “leer”, “depend”, “taunt” and “ostracize”. What is this dark underbelly Kim sees? What business does it have in our favorite practice of nostalgia? Like all things, it depends on perspective. Now lower yourself to the floor and look from there. Maybe the bikes have returned to snuggling. The backs are now rigid in the tender awkwardness of new love, early dates. The balloons brace together, as if on a roller coaster, reveling in the thrill of danger below. Consumed together, it feels that Kim is taking on therapy’s darling: the “Yes, And…” approach.  Childhood is happy and you have no freedom. Friendships are comforting and can be stunting.  To remain young, and in groups, is to be frozen in the amber of “pre-individuality”.  Things are easier this way. Verbs like “hustle” or “fail” are nowhere to be found. But it leaves you in a state of perpetual dependance–– when life happens, it is routed through others. Your interiority dries up.  Of course, you don’t need to be concerned by this. Dependency is not necessarily, or even often, a bad thing. Same with conformity.  But it is part of the package we tend to forget.  Archeology can help locate this package. But it might take an artist to remind us what’s inside.In conversation, Kim has noted that they like when the sun slides behind a cloud and all at once, everything becomes ominous. They also like the moment on a frozen pond when you crack through the ice—  the fear!—only to land, and come to be held, by the layer of ice that lived just below.  Our lives are spent casting and recasting the same relationships in different lighting, from different vantage points. What a privilege when we can remember that it is only ever temporary.

William Kim
Artist Statement
｡o○♡(✿◠‿◠)(＾◡＾ ).｡.:♡
* I found this passage in my diary - March 2024

hey
…
go play
be juvenile
tell after the city
street-cast ur stories
eavesdrop outdoors
treasure hunt
the city
…
build poetic playgrounds
belong to daydreams
ephemeral
intimacy
…
belong but not to items
borrow items
from the street
and childhood
memory
…
be a kid be a poet
screenwriter who dwells inside nostalgia
who narrates featherlight tales with in-depth feelings
who counteracts the monumental
who lives but all for the tale
in the ephemeral
…

* my practice records my decision to refrain from a fixed living space*