[K-ART FOCUS] For Ru Kim, dog's escape becomes story of power

Ru Kim’s installation at the 16th Gwangju Biennale turns a dog’s escape into a story about power and hierarchy in Jeonnam-Gwangju Special Metropolitan City. The work, titled Tails of Courage, or the Master’s Pirouette, uses four-channel sound and light to stage a role reversal between a dog named Courage and an oppressive master. Kim said the project grew from a wish to talk about courage and authority, not from the dog itself.

The installation is part of The Look is A Li(k)e, the Italian Pavilion of the 16th Gwangju Biennale.

Kim said the main character is the lighting, which speaks, moves, changes color and follows viewers.

The ongoing Courage project began with workshops involving university students in France and later Korea.

The project draws on the U.S. animated series Courage the Cowardly Dog and Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children.

The Look is A Li(k)e runs through Feb. 14, 2027, at Donggok Museum in Jeonnam-Gwangju Special Metropolitan City.

Published Sep 25, 2026 7:01 am KST

At Gwangju Biennale's Italian Pavilion, Kim turns empty stage and moving lights into tragicomic meditation on hierarchy

An installation view of Ru Kim's "Tails of Courage, or the Master's Pirouette" (2026) at the 16th Gwangju Biennale's Italian Pavilion exhibition, "The Look is a Li(K)e" / Courtesy of Ru Kim

This is the fourth in a series spotlighting Korean artists whose distinct creative worlds are coming into focus in the country’s vibrant autumn art season. —ED.

JEONNAM-GWANGJU SPECIAL METROPOLITAN CITY — Pink velvet curtains frame an empty stage. A soft, fluffy carpet lies beneath shifting spotlights. There are no performers in Ru Kim’s “Tails of Courage, or the Master’s Pirouette” (2026), but four-channel sound gives the space its cast: Courage, a pink dog who has escaped an oppressive master, the master, who crawls, barks and searches for the missing animal, and a restless light that seems to move with a will of its own.

As a voice fills the room, visitors are invited to picture the chase. The master, aching from crawling on knees, finally reaches for what seems to be Courage’s tail and races toward it— only to realize that the tail is growing from their own body.

The strange, tragicomic reversal is Kim’s new installation at “The Look is A Li(k)e,” the Italian Pavilion of the 16th Gwangju Biennale — where Kim was invited to join the Italian Pavilion together with another Korean artist. The artist turns narrative into a testing ground for hierarchy: who is allowed to command, who must obey and what becomes possible when fixed roles begin to break down.

“The main character is actually the lighting,” Kim said in an interview with The Korea Times. “It speaks, it moves, it changes color and follows you.” The work, designed with light designer Kimju Seul-kee, makes a usually secondary theatrical device into an agent with its own apparent intention.

The installation is part of the artist’s ongoing “Courage” project, which began with workshops involving university students in France and later Korea. Its central dog takes its name partly from the U.S. animated television series “Courage the Cowardly Dog,” while the project draws on playwright Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children.”

The project grew from Kim’s wish to speak about courage without reducing the solemn lesson or a simple assurance that everything will work out.

“The dog was not the starting point,” Kim said. “The starting point was the idea of wanting to talk about courage … I wanted to tell them that yes, things can happen, but you have to make them happen. And to do that, I think it really takes courage.”

In the project’s earlier chapters, Courage leaves the master and encounters other dogs. Together, they form a music group and recall the fearful days before their escape, finding a sense of freedom and kinship away from who had controlled them. The master, meanwhile, cannot accept the separation. Trying to get Courage back — and perhaps the authority — the master takes on the dog’s gestures and body.

For the artist, the value of the role reversal lies in making viewers feel their own attachment to familiar hierarchies. In previous live performance of the work, Kim descended from a statuesque, godlike stance to crawl through the audience on hands and knees. Some viewers laughed; others recoiled. One person even petted the artist.

“I think there are many ways to see a performance, and one of them is to feel connected to a character,” Kim said. “To see a character go through such a change and feel uncomfortable with one of the changes, it speaks to who you are feeling more related towards.”

Ru Kim poses in front of the artist's "Tails of Courage, or the Master's Pirouette" (2026) at the 16th Gwangju Biennale's Italian Pavilion exhibition, "The Look is a Li(K)e" / Courtesy of Ru Kim

Born in Hamburg in 1995, Kim lived in Korea, Cyprus, Germany, Canada and Brazil before studying art in France. Although the artist does not reduce the work to an autobiographical piece, the experience of entering new cultural systems, learning to belong and recognizing the limits of adaptation led to persistent questions about power: "What can power become and what can we make it become?"

Kim’s interest in unstable authority has also led to histories in which power is secured by treating some lives as less than human.

In the 2024 solo exhibition “I KNOW WHAT I’VE DONE,” Kim revisited a fifth-century legend about St. Julius, who was said to have traveled to an island in northern Italy, killed the snakes living there and built a church.

Rather than accepting the myth as told, Kim considered how colonial and religious narratives have repeatedly rendered people targeted for domination as animals, monsters or lesser beings.

Kim’s resulting work imagined a different encounter. The displaced saint came face to face with a snake he killed, and the two walked together through the island and church. They shed their costumes, changed into matching skin-toned outfits and danced through the night. The work does not offer a clean reconciliation; Kim leaves the relationship unresolved, even suggesting the possibility of the snake killing the saint.

Ru Kim's "I KNOW WHAT I'VE DONE" (2024) / Courtesy of Ru Kim

“I like to take part of what have roots in history or social belief and try to imagine what could have been otherwise, or what could be otherwise,” Kim said.

Such counter-narratives also reflect Kim’s engagement with hydrofeminism, a strand of feminism thought that views water as a reminder of the material connection among human beings, other species and the environments they share.

“It helps us understand our position as humans and our responsibility towards different species but also within our own species because of this notion that we are undeniably all connected by waters we emit and ingest,” Kim said. “I think that sense of responsibility also makes us not only feel closer to each other and to the other but also understand that there is no true natural hierarchy that should be respected.”

“The Look is A Li(k)e” runs through Feb. 14, 2027, at Donggok Museum in Jeonnam-Gwangju Special Metropolitan City.

在第16届光州双年展上，Ru Kim的装置作品将一只狗的逃跑经历转化为一个关于全罗南道光州特别都市权力与等级的故事。这件名为《勇气之尾，或主人的旋转》的作品运用四声道声光效果，呈现了一只名叫“勇气”的狗与一位专横跋扈的主人之间的角色互换。Kim表示，这个项目的灵感并非源于狗本身，而是源于她想要探讨勇气与权威的愿望。

该装置是第16届光州双年展意大利馆“The Look is A Li(k)e”的一部分。

金说，主角是灯光，它会说话、移动、改变颜色，还会跟随观众。

持续进行的“勇气”项目始于在法国和韩国举办的大学生研讨会。

该项目借鉴了美国动画系列《胆小狗英雄》和贝托尔特·布莱希特的《大胆妈妈和她的孩子们》。

《Look is A Li(k)e》展览将于 2027 年 2 月 14 日在全罗南道光州特别广域市东谷美术馆举行。

发布于2026年9月25日 上午7:01（韩国标准时间）

在光州双年展的意大利馆，金将空荡荡的舞台和移动的灯光转化为一场关于等级制度的悲喜剧式冥想。

图为 Ru Kim 的作品《勇气的尾巴，或大师的旋转》（2026）在第16届光州双年展意大利馆展览“凝视即是爱”中的装置现场 / 图片由 Ru Kim 提供

这是本系列文章的第四篇，旨在聚焦韩国艺术家，他们独特的创作世界正随着韩国充满活力的秋季艺术季而逐渐为人所知。——编者注

全南光州特稿 广域市——粉色天鹅绒幕布勾勒出一个空荡荡的舞台。柔软蓬松的地毯铺在移动的聚光灯下。在金如（Ru Kim）的《勇气的故事，或主人的旋转》（2026）中，没有演员，但四声道环绕声赋予了空间演员阵容：一只名叫“勇气”的粉色小狗，它逃离了专横的主人；主人，它爬行、吠叫、寻找着走失的动物；以及一束仿佛拥有自主意识、躁动不安的光。

随着一个声音响起，参观者们被引导着想象追逐的场景。主人跪地爬行，浑身酸痛，终于伸手抓住了看似是勇气的尾巴，并朝它飞奔而去——却发现那尾巴竟然是从自己身上长出来的。

这种奇异而又悲喜交加的反转，是金氏在第16届光州双年展意大利馆展出的新装置作品“The Look is A Li(k)e”。金氏受邀与另一位韩国艺术​​家一同参展意大利馆。艺术家将叙事转化为等级制度的试验场：谁有权发号施令，谁必须服从，以及当既定的角色开始瓦解时，又会发生什么。

“真正的主角其实是灯光，”金在接受《韩国时报》采访时说道，“它会说话，会移动，会变色，还会跟随你的视线。” 这件作品由金与灯光设计师金瑟琪共同创作，将通常作为次要的戏剧元素，赋予了自身独特的意义。

该装置是艺术家正在进行的“勇气”项目的一部分，该项目始于在法国和韩国举办的大学生工作坊。装置中的中心犬只的名字部分来源于美国动画电视剧《胆小狗英雄》，而该项目则借鉴了剧作家贝托尔特·布莱希特的《大胆妈妈和她的孩子们》。

这个项目源于金的愿望，即在不淡化严肃的教训或简单地保证一切都会好起来的前提下，谈论勇气。

“那条狗并不是我的出发点，”金说。“我的出发点是想谈谈勇气……我想告诉他们，是的，事情可能会发生，但你必须主动去创造机会。而要做到这一点，我认为真的需要勇气。”

在故事的前几章中，勇气离开了主人，遇到了其他狗狗。它们一起组建了一个乐队，回忆起逃跑前那些令人恐惧的日子，在远离控制它们的人的庇护下，找到了自由和归属感。与此同时，主人却无法接受与勇气的分离。为了找回勇气——或许也为了重新获得权威——主人开始模仿勇气的举止和身体。

对艺术家而言，角色互换的价值在于让观众感受到自身对既有等级制度的依恋。在之前的作品现场表演中，金从雕塑般神圣的姿态俯身，手脚并用地爬过观众席。一些观众笑了，另一些则退缩了。甚至有人抚摸了艺术家。

“我认为欣赏一场表演有很多种方式，其中一种就是与角色建立联系，”金说道。“看到一个角色经历如此巨大的变化，并对其中一种变化感到不适，这正体现了你更认同哪个角色。”

在第16届光州双年展意大利馆展览“眼神即是爱”上，Ru Kim在艺术家作品《勇气之尾，或大师的旋转》（2026）前摆姿势拍照 / 图片由Ru Kim提供

金于1995年出生于汉堡，在法国学习艺术之前，他曾居住在韩国、塞浦路斯、德国、加拿大和巴西。尽管这位艺术家并未将作品完全归类为自传体作品，但进入新的文化体系、学习融入以及认识到适应的局限性，都促使他不断思考权力问题：“权力会变成什么样？我们又能把它变成什么样？”

金正恩对不稳定的政权的兴趣也导致了一些历史事件，在这些事件中，权力是通过把某些人的生命视为非人来巩固的。

在 2024 年的个展“我知道我做了什么”中，金重温了一个关于圣朱利叶斯的五世纪传说。据说圣朱利叶斯曾前往意大利北部的一个岛屿，杀死了岛上的蛇，并建造了一座教堂。

金并没有接受这种神话，而是思考殖民主义和宗教叙事是如何反复将那些被统治的人描绘成动物、怪物或低等生物的。

金的作品构想了另一种相遇。流离失所的圣人与他杀死的蛇不期而遇，两人一同穿过岛屿和教堂。他们脱下盛装，换上肤色相近的服装，彻夜起舞。这件作品并未呈现一个彻底的和解；金并未给出明确的答案，甚至暗示蛇有可能杀死圣人。

Ru Kim 的作品《我知道我做了什么》（2024）/ 图片由 Ru Kim 提供

“我喜欢选取一些根植于历史或社会信仰的事物，然后试着想象另一种可能，或者另一种可能性，”金说。

这种反叙事也反映了金对水女性主义的参与，水女性主义是女性主义思想的一个分支，它将水视为人类、其他物种和它们共享的环境之间物质联系的提醒。

“这有助于我们理解作为人类的自身定位，以及我们对不同物种乃至自身物种的责任，因为我们都无可否认地通过我们排放和摄入的水体相互联系，”金说。“我认为这种责任感不仅让我们彼此之间以及与其他物种之间感到更加亲近，也让我们明白并不存在真正需要被尊重的自然等级制度。”

“The Look is A Li(k)e”展览将于2027年2月14日前在全罗南道光州特别广域市东谷美术馆举行。