Read on IMPULSE
June 16, 2025
When faced with the task of spending an artful afternoon in SoHo, you’d be wise to avoid the Bansky Museum and instead turn downtown on Broadway toward Dimin. After passing up a short flight of stairs, you’ll be greeted by a series of friendly faces in white and pastel blue uniforms—their fingernails painted to match—made to resemble Korean Air flight attendants.
Hello, Goodbye features eight ceramic sculptures by Michelle Im, each low-fired in two parts in a method based on the construction process of Joseon Dynasty moon jars. The finishes of the sculptures also vary; some faces and uniforms are rendered in an unglazed matte, while others are Maiolica- or commercial-glazed. Referential duality is rife in Hello, Goodbye: the physical construction of each piece, the posed duo of Ju-Bi Eun-Bi (宙飛 恩飛) (2025), the artist as a Korean-American, the exhibition title itself. Within these dualities, Im’s works sit in a comfortable limbo—here, we are in the air, between places, being welcomed, offered immaculate service and solace.
Referencing yet subverting the form and function of the Terracotta Warriors, the figures stand in a U-shape, creating an aisle for the viewer to traverse under their warm, unblinking gaze and vaguely archaic smiles. The viewer becomes an active participant, a client, upon entering the space, yet the sculptures’ totemic nature lends itself to a ritualistic atemporality—a certainty of constant vigilance. In the artist’s sanctum, her sculptures are realized as unified paragons of hospitality, duty, and labor.
One might expect an exhibition centered around images of stewardesses to comment on the hardships faced by women in these roles, of the fragile pursuit of perfection and the perfect facade of a customer service smile. Instead, Im makes a deliberate choice to position the labor of service through the lens of care and an observation of ritual.
Several pieces were named by the artist’s mother using gwansang, the ancient Korean technique of face-reading. Geum-Bi (金 費), for example, means “gold expense,” implying a character of “big ambition.” The figure holds a coffee pot and sports a colorful updo of orange, yellow, and blue, a palette that adheres to Obangsaek, the five cardinal colors which carry symbolic associations with specific seasons, elements, and directions in Korean tradition. Each figure’s name approximates their appearance; with Hyo-Soon (孝順), whose name translates to “filial piety” and “purity,” Im humorously sculpts the attendant’s legs crossed. Most of her sculptures’ names correspond to Korean cultural values: grace, humility, intelligence, familial duty.
These longstanding principles set into the country’s cultural fabric, in addition to the use of hanja, the classical Sino-Korean script rarely used anymore outside educational and official settings, reaffirm Im’s omnipresent and layered indices of Korea throughout the exhibition. Indexicality is inherently in limbo. Not fully detached from the signified but never as intimate as the icon, the index is relegated to pointing: “Here is the thing that made me.” Hello, Goodbye travels between here and there, tradition and contemporaneity, othering and belonging. Here, we are in the air—are we moving toward or away from the signified?
— Katya Borkov
