Tae D Kim (James)
I am a multidisciplinary artist exploring identity, gender, and cultural narratives through the lens of fictional archaeology. With a Master of Science in Architecture from Virginia Tech, Northern Virginia Campus (2010) and a Bachelor of Arts from Seoul National University (1999), I integrate architecture, sculpture, and installation to challenge conventional views on history and self-representation.
My solo exhibitions include Fictional Archaeology at Incheon Open Port Museum (2024) and Kimbo seong Art Center (2023), Relics at Consulate General of the Republic of Korea, Washington, D.C. (2022), and Intersections at KCC Gallery, NJ (2016). I have also participated in international group exhibitions, such as SCOPE 2023 in Miami Beach, FL, Whisper.../Dance of 4 Materiality at One Art Space, New York (2024), and Interlace: Weaving Worlds through Art at jCUBE Art Museum, Korea (2024).
My current project, Excavation at the Ruin of the Kim-James House Site, expands my exploration of personal and collective memory by reimagining personal objects as historical artifacts. Museums preserve relics as cultural records, inviting curiosity and appreciation. I envision my own personal items—often dismissed or ridiculed—being displayed similarly, allowing them to transcend prejudice and gain new significance.
In an earlier installation, I fossilized and gilded a hoodie, suspending it on a cross—symbolizing my search for redemption as a gay man. I have always been drawn to objects that challenge gender norms: warcraft models, fashion accessories, and sparkling jewelry. Often seen as feminine, these items once compelled me to hide my identity. Through my work, I reclaim and recontextualize them, transforming past shame into symbols of self-worth.
My work is part of private and institutional collections worldwide. Currently, I am preparing for a solo exhibition at Gallery Alley in Seoul, Korea, as well as group exhibitions at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center and IMUR Gallery, New York.
Excavation at the Ruin of the Kim-James House Site continues my exploration of identity, societal expectations, and the transformative power of recontextualizing personal history within a museum-like setting.
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This sculptural work is a contemporary homage to Auguste Rodin’s Bellona, the Roman goddess of war, reinterpreted through the lens of fictional archaeology. The bust, partially painted in segments of vibrant ultramarine, powder blue, and steel gray, appears as though unearthed from a forgotten future—an artifact of a civilization wrestling with evolving concepts of strength, femininity, and representation.
In this fictional excavation, Bellona is no longer just a symbol of martial prowess. She becomes a fractured emblem of shifting identities, reconstructed with precision yet left purposefully incomplete. The surface segmentation mimics the language of archaeological restoration—visible seams and unnatural color blocks that hint at technological intervention or cultural reassembly. The piece suggests not a ruin of the past, but a relic from a speculative timeline where classical ideals are preserved, challenged, and reimagined simultaneously.
The deliberate use of industrial, synthetic hues breaks from marble’s traditional purity, evoking questions about artificiality, gender coding, and the legacy of Western art history. Bellona’s commanding gaze and ornate helmet remain intact, but her warrior image is softened through this chromatic intervention, allowing the viewer to consider power not as dominance, but as layered complexity.
Through this hybridization of ancient form and futuristic recontextualization, the piece performs an act of speculative museology—asking what survives, what is lost, and how new meanings are sedimented into cultural memory. In the language of fictional archaeology, this Bellona is both myth and mirror: a reflection of the artist’s exploration of fragmented identity and the reconstructed narratives that define us.
Personal Sedimented, Special Edition, 2025
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This sculpture, titled "Fictional Ruin: Human Statue", embodies the artist’s ongoing exploration of fictional archaeology—a practice that reimagines contemporary life as if unearthed from a distant future. Cast entirely in matte white and presented within a transparent display case, the figure resembles a fossilized relic or museum artifact. Its fragmented surface, divided along subtle seams, mimics the language of restoration, as if the statue has been meticulously reconstructed from broken pieces.
The faceless figure wears a t-shirt, jogger pants, and sneakers—casual clothing of the present day. Yet, stripped of identity and expression, the sculpture becomes anonymous and universal. The absence of a face challenges viewers to consider themes of erasure, memory, and the fragility of individuality within broader historical and cultural narratives.
The figure’s pose, hands in pockets and shoulders relaxed, suggests confidence or nonchalance, frozen in time. However, within the context of fictional archaeology, this moment is loaded with speculative meaning: How will future societies interpret our everyday postures, fashion, or body language? What remains when personal identity has been reduced to silhouette and surface?
By encasing the sculpture in a pristine vitrine, the work deliberately evokes museum display techniques, blurring the lines between contemporary realism and ancient artifact. It proposes that the human figure—clothed, casual, and contemporary—can also be monumental, worthy of preservation and reflection. This piece is a quiet yet powerful meditation on permanence, anonymity, and the way we construct history through objects and absence.
Three-Dimensional Compositions; Bio-based Plastic, 13” x 20” x 31”
Three-Dimensional Compositions; Bio-based Plastic, Acrylic Painting Coating, Diamond Simulant (CZ), 3/5, 13” x 15” x 36”