By: Lauren Cohen
June 23, 2025
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Walking into Michelle Im’s solo exhibition Hello, Goodbye at Dimin Gallery feels like stepping into a surreal temple of memory and performance. Instead of marble deities or ancient warriors, we’re met by a formation of life-sized ceramic flight attendants. The stylized figures are glazed in pastel blue and cream uniforms, standing tall on pedestals like modern-day terracotta soldiers. Arranged in a symmetrical grid across the gallery, these figures feel ceremonial and subversive. Each one holds a distinct pose: some clasp teapots or trays, others flash hand gestures, and two at the far end form a heart together, which is an unmistakable symbol of love. They do not serve so much as they stage the act of service.
Hello, Goodbye is incredibly layered with meaning. Im began the body of work directly after a trip to Korea where she was visiting her father before his passing. The act of sculpting these women—each of whom has been lovingly named by her mother according to the Korean naming practice of gwansang—becomes a ritual of remembrance. What results is not just an installation, but a tender farewell.
These women are quiet disruptors. Their exaggerated features, cheeky smiles, and stiff poses mock the docility expected of service workers. Though Im herself was never an airline host she has had other gigs contoured by decorum and an adherence to detail orientation and meticulous service, like being a captain in a Michelin star restaurant—their stringent rules may seem extreme to workers in other professions. The decision to add bright colorful glazes that seem to melt down her sculpture’s coiffed hair disturbs the neatness of their uniforms. Their placement in the stark white gallery removes them from the context of an airplane aisle and elevates them to icons—enigmatic, unknowable, and reverent.
As a Korean American artist, Im draws deeply from her upbringing, moving between two very different cultures. She invokes the tradition of the Korean Moon Jar—two separate halves joined to form a single, imperfect whole. Each sculpture is hand-built from multiple parts, fused together in a process that mirrors the complexity of cultural duality and transformation. The figures feel unified yet distinct, suggesting how identity is often an assemblage of fragmented selves.
Despite their stoicism, the figures seem alive. They hold space with a quiet confidence, and their subtle gestures feel simultaneously absurd and affectionate. Im’s exhibition reads as both critique and celebration: a reclamation of feminine labor, a study on cultural inheritance, and a poignant performance of optimism in the face of loss. The title Hello, Goodbye is more than a salutation—it’s a mantra, a loop of endings and beginnings. And much like the figures she conjures, it lingers long after we leave the room.
Hello, Goodbye is on view through July 11th, 2025 at Dimin Gallery, 406 Broadway Fl. 2, New York, NY 10013.
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