Gala Porras-Kim examines art of collecting at Kukje Gallery K1

In her first solo exhibit at Kukje Gallery K1, Gala Porras-Kim, a Colombian Korean American artist, examines the intricacies of collecting, from institutions to individuals and from criteria to emotional attachment.

Gala Porras-Kim speaks to reporters about her solo exhibit "Conditions for Holding a Natural Form" at Kukje Gallery K1 in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Tuesday. [LEE JIAN]

The art of collecting, examined by contemporary artist Gala Porras-Kim, is never without meaning.

In her solo exhibit “Conditions for holding a natural form” at Kukje Gallery K1, the Colombian Korean American artist probes the systems that produce, preserve and classify objects, revealing the shifting meanings they carry across personal and institutional histories. The result is an interrogating yet whimsical set of works revolving around Asian rock collections — essentially pet rocks.

“I’m interested in how we try to control and define aspects of both the natural world and the institutional world,” she told reporters at the gallery in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Tuesday. “Many of my recent works have dealt with institutional collections, but when I think about those projects, they all stem from the same collecting impulse we have in our personal lives. This exhibition at Kukje, in particular, has allowed me to explore personal collections in relation to larger ideas of collecting.”

Porras- Kim, 41, is an interdisciplinary artist based in London and Los Angeles, whose research-based practice engages with collecting and conservation practices as a means to address an object's various modes of being as well as changing definitions that impact their interpretation. Working through drawings, sculptures and installations, the artist has held solo exhibitions at institutions, including the Carnegie Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Leeum Museum of Art and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul.

"6 Balanced Stones" (2025) by Gala Porras-Kim [KUKJE GALLERY]

At her Kukje Gallery show, Porras-Kim showcases six large drawings of rock collections, inspired by suseok. Also known as viewing stones or scholar’s stones, suseok are essentially uniquely shaped rocks widely collected in East Asia.

The works are carefully drawn with colored pencils, featuring oddly shaped rocks she found online, neatly placed on shelves categorized by the artist into different groups, such as outer space or animal-shaped rocks, on each framed artwork.

“What intrigues me about collecting stones is that there is a long history of collecting these natural objects, and established principles exist for evaluating their forms. There are even books that provide standards for judging which forms are ‘good’ and which are ‘bad,’” she said — conditions shaped by human perception and aesthetic traditions.

“But when I looked at the collectors, I noticed that many of them were older. This made me think about how collections actually exist over time — often, stones are inherited, and the reasons for keeping them can shift from formal criteria to emotional attachment. In this way, the same objects, much like items in institutional collections, can take on entirely different functions or meanings across generations.”

The style of drawing is inspired by chaekgeori, Korea's traditional genre of still-life art depicting dimensionality on flat surfaces.

She underscored that they are not paintings.

“Everybody is drawing, and it feels more democratic. Painting, by contrast, carries so much art-historical weight and cultural capital,” she said. “What I also like about drawing is that the scale allows for a very particular, slow engagement with the subject — essentially, the viewing experience matches the size of your pencil point. You end up looking very closely, almost obsessively, at every part of the work.”

The exhibition adds a personal element by showcasing actual suseok from collectors, along with a message from their owners about the stones’ significance.

“After conceptualizing the exhibition, I really thought that we should also include other people's reasoning for collecting stones,” she said. “Often a parent collected an object for one reason, and it has been passed down and now carries a different meaning or memory.”

"Signal (Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo)" (2023) by Gala Porras-Kim [KUKJE GALLERY]

Her Kukje Gallery show also features the “Signal” series, an ongoing set of works that the artist began in 2021, comprising more abstract pieces that rethink the museum’s practices of conserving artwork.

Central to the series is moisture, which is generally regarded as detrimental to art. Her "Signal" works are created in various institutional spaces using a suspended fabric soaked in graphite and an industrial dehumidifier nearby. Throughout the exhibition, the dehumidifier collects and releases moisture from the gallery environment, which drips through the fabric and leaves marks on panels placed on the floor. These patterns reflect environmental conditions such as climate, season and visitor presence, capturing the otherwise invisible vitality of the exhibition space in abstract form.

“Conditions for holding a natural form" runs through Oct. 26.

BY LEE JIAN [lee.jian@joongang.co.kr]