The Long 20th Century Material World and Humans:
          Viewer No. 23’s Tale of Salt Stone, Knotted Rope, and Earthen Pillars

          Kim Seungjin



I was tasked with observing an exhibition and writing a review of it. The exhibition featured artworks made of various materials, each accompanied by a short textual description detailing the materials used. These descriptions were the only “written” elements: for instance, “rope dyed with iron oxide and indigo,” “straw rope over cement, over household waste, over iron mesh, over earth mixture, such as earth, lime, iron oxide, and natural pigments," and so on. Of course, there were the titles which were also “written texts,” symbolizing the artist’s inspiration for each artwork (e.g. “Parting Winddance” or “Sondol Valley of Fire”). However, except for the brief information about the materials and the symbolic phrases, there was no other "written" text linking this limited factual information with the condensed metaphors included in the titles of the artworks. It appeared that I myself had to “read something” from the works in front of me; and it was of course unlikely that the salt rocks, knotted ropes, and earthen pillars themselves would tell me that “something” verbally.

I am an amateur in the field of art, and the artist did not request that I write art criticism. I have been a journalist, translator, and university lecturer. My writing has been predicated on the notion that I must reach a so-called underlying truth and confront it directly.” If I fail to engage faithfully with the “genuine substance,” my writing (whether it being informative notes, reports, translations, and lecture prompts) will devolve into a document devoid of objectivity or marred by substantial inaccuracy. In my exploration for the genuine substance, I have always relied on words and written sources, including interviews, records, books, and articles; hence, I have seldom engaged directly with “material objects” themselves. I initially sought someone to unravel the “truth” embedded in the exhibited material objects. People typically seek archaeologists for exhibitions of ancient artifacts, historians or art historians for historical artifacts, and paleontologists for fossils. And, as this is an “art” exhibition, I decided to meet the artist who created the works!

At the exhibition venue, I met Kim Minhoon, the artist, and asked him to spare some time for me. And I bombard him with numerous questions: What was the rationale behind concealing the waste in earthen pillars? Could you elucidate your reasoning behind eschewing objects from industrial society? How do you know when you have twisted the straws into ropes that are neither too thick nor too thin? Is there a fascinating anecdote regarding the importation of Himalayan salt rocks? Why did you not reveal the physical properties of the soil? Do different knot forms have different meanings? Could you please explain why you did not explicitly present the stories of the seven earthen pillars? Is the place where the soil was collected related to the story of each pillar? What was the rationale behind positioning the salt rocks and knotted ropes in places that are difficult to view at eye level? What are the criteria for the different colors used? The list goes on and on... Despite kindly answering all my questions, the artist stated that the exhibition (and the catalog) does not need to disclose everything. In fact, he preferred to exercise caution not to provide or impose excessive information regarding the artist’s intentions, meanings, anecdotes, etc. to the audience. Furthermore, given that the artist had the freedom to disclose whatever information he desired in the exhibition catalog, I realized that my stance of “I would convey your intentions without distortion [to the reader]” was presumptuous.

So again, I returned to my initial predicament: As someone who seeks to fully respect the objects presented as artworks, the materials that compose them, and the narratives of the artist who shaped it, what story can I rightfully read out of these objects and commit to writing?



I eventually decided to write this essay having in mind a notion of “contact.” Initially, I thought I should write: 1) a story about the art objects and materials, 2) a story about the artist’s understanding of the art objects and materials, and 3) a story about creation in which the author’s own life was reflected. I had thought that I could write a compelling article only by properly decoding the “genuine substance” that interweaves these three narratives. While I affirm that this conventional approach is still valuable, it was beyond my capabilities for this essay; neither materials nor art are my areas of expertise. The best I could do was probably not “delving into” but just “making a contact” with the genuine, underlying substance. However, if I simply “contact” it, it could merely be one “dot,” one tangent point. When I engage with the artwork, I must employ all available resources to transform this contact, the dot, into something with area and volume, richer than a mere tangent point. Some may contend that this approach is not that different from subjective distortion, which I agree is a valid point. Nonetheless, I would argue that "fully utilizing all my available resources" is not to obliterate or disregard the object I contact but to make my “contact” as fair as possible. In short, using the keyword “contact” would allow me to write something without displacing the artist’s narrative with that of the viewer (i.e., me) or creating a situation in which the artist’s narrative and the viewer’s (i.e. my) narrative exist in isolation from each other.

This is why this essay has such a grandiose title (“The Long 20th Century Material World and Humans”), and such a trepid subtitle (“Viewer No. 23’s Tale of Salt Rocks, Knotted Ropes, and Earthen Pillars”). I am interested in the interplay between materials and humans and regularly teach on this topic at university. I specialize in the long 20th century, during which human-material relations underwent a qualitative shift due to fossil fuel-based industrialization. In examining human-material interaction, I approach it from a sociological perspective: Human beings do not directly experience materials without the mediation of social institutions. Humans perceive matter via the lens of social institutions and cultural mechanisms, actively engaging in social actions that alter the meanings of the materials. Consequently, the properties of matter are not merely delineated by physical traits. They are determined by aesthetic, commercial, and ritual values ascribed through social processes.[1] This knowledge serves as my own resources to be mobilized when I make contact with the material objects in this exhibition. But I am merely an ordinary viewer—someone unfamiliar with both the materials such as salt, rope, and soil, and the realm of art and creation. Thus, here comes the subtitle “Viewer No. 23” (a randomly selected number, not No. 1 or 2), signifying my cautious attempt to engage with the artist's work.



Last year, Kim Minhoon, the artist, explained that he intended to plan an exhibition “to explore various materials important to human existence over an extended period,” drawing inspiration from the story of The Giving Tree. He was specifically preparing “megalith sculptures made of soil, handcrafted pieces solely consisting of knotted ropes, and viewing stones made of Himalayan salt rocks.” Within the framework of the long 20th century, the key terms of the “giving tree” and “ordinary objects” are intrinsically linked to the notion of economic usefulness, which pertains to ongoing contexts of production and consumption, alongside the value-chain manifested in mass and globalized production.

However, the works on display did not directly correspond to either of these two terms. First, the works did not resemble materials from the contemporary world, particularly the products of the long 20th century. For instance, salt was presented in the form of natural salt rocks, rather than the artificial condiment; the ropes were in the form of traditional knots; and the earthen pillars were not the images of contemporary built environments since nobody applies soil to make walls anymore. Second, the works rejected the concept of economic usefulness that I habitually associate with ordinary objects. For example, salt in the form of huge rocks may not be practical for daily use. A rope composed solely of knots would not function as a string that pulls and tightens. Despite the lengthy string part remaining, it was hanging in the air devoid of its original function. And the earthen pillars were insufficiently low to support a house or its roof or walls.

I realized that if one recontextualizes those works that lack functional uses and resemble the objects of premodern world within the context of the long 20th century material world, these works could represent certain aspects of contemporary material culture that are rendered invisible.

Salt rocks sourced from mountains, rather than the sea, are intrinsically associated with the mining economy. The salt rocks contain two different timeframes that are obliterated in their final form, Himalayan pink salt. One is the geological time during which the salt mineral veins were formed. The Khewra salt mine in Pakistan was formed 500 to 600 million years ago due to the evaporation, compression, and tectonic uplift of ancient inland sea.[2] Even though all minerals are products of eons far surpassing humanity’s existence, humans regard them as merely “given.” The “Giving Tree” therefore serves as a metaphor for a substance that came to be judged based on its human usefulness. It does not represent the act of generosity per se, but rather illustrates how humans conveniently neglect to honor the enormous amount of time that had passed in the creation of the substance while perceiving it as freely available, and thus subject to reckless human consumption.

The second timeframe relates to the process of the commodity value-chain from the extraction to the consumption. Even though minerals are geological products, once they enter the human system of the mining economy, the economic values of them are determined by human labor and human institutions, not by the working of nature in their formation. Within the commodity value-chain, extraction is the part that enjoys the least portion out of value-added. According to an article, natural salt rocks are exported for $40 per ton. It is other countries making finished products (table salt, spa salt, salt rock ornaments, etc.) that collect higher values. For instance, the United States sells the finished product "Himalayan salt rock zen cube" for $16 per piece. According to the same article, there have been discussions in Pakistan about labeling Himalayan salt with a trademark to indicate its national origin. While this was intended to provide mining communities with a greater share of the economic value, it would conflict with the product’s market image, which benefits more from evoking the pristine, snow-covered Himalayas than from being associated with the name of “Pakistan.” In this context, the image desired by consumers obscures significant actions related to geology, labor, institutions, and trade. If we extend this logic from salt rocks to many other minerals, consumers’ efforts to consciously shed light on one injustice could perpetuate another injustice of the mining laborers by making them invisible. For one thing, the push for decarbonization to cope with the injustice of climate change ironically increased forced labor, child labor, debt labor, and environmental destruction, as miners have been pressured to extract more raw materials. For instance, because lithium-ion batteries are used in decarbonized devices such as electric vehicles, consumers disregard the injustice suffered by miners who work in the arena of so-called “green mining” and “sustainable mining.”[3]

The exhibition featured ropes fashioned into knotted items of craftwork. Since the purpose of a knot is to tie, a knot alone cannot function unless it is with a string that pulls and tightens. Strings were still hanging from the ceiling, but it didn’t look like they would pull you up into the sky. Rather, they looked abandoned. Contemporary people rarely use knots in daily life any longer. Nowadays, tying is a job of duct tape, while refined knot-tying skills have moved from everyday life to the realm of craft. Of course, craft and decorative artisanal work still exist in everyday life—but decoration typically depends on a larger contextual background to function. The oversized decorative knots in the exhibition space, detached from such a context, seemed to reject even their decorative role. These huge knots without actual function remind us that things that are considered “dysfunctional” in contemporary society become invisible. In the contemporary material world, a “dysfunctional” item is thrown away somewhere, and if it functions properly in an abandoned place, it becomes dysfunctional or harmful to human beings. For example, if a knot goes against its original function, the actions of tightening, tying, and pulling can cause a malfunction called “entanglement.” According to a recent article, ropes accounted for about 52% of marine waste generated near the South Korean coastline between 2009 and 2021, followed by vinyl, which accounted for about 39%, and nets, which accounted for about 3%.[4] The article explains the malfunction of discarded strings and knots, stating that “Ropes abandoned in the sea can cause ship accidents and damages to marine animals, and it is difficult to collect them if they are tangled tightly in the sea.” Abandoned ropes assert themselves by tangling, and this predicament is revealed in this exhibition in the form of rope-knots as beautiful craftworks.

In the exhibition, soil was presented not as fertile ground that nurtures life, but as a building material used to coat walls. However, it was household waste that filled these pillars and enabled them to rise and stand on the ground. Knowing that these earthen pillars were in fact household waste covered by soil, I realized that another function of the land/soil is to isolate and contain harmful substances through burial. The long 20th century of mass production and consumption has naturally involved mass disposal, and human beings have established a waste disposal system that aims at quick and permanent isolation to resolve the public health crisis caused by uncollected waste.[5] If burying materials in the ground used to mean “circulation” of materials in the past, today’s buried materials are not and should not be circulated anymore. First, in terms of ecology, many buried substances are unable to naturally decompose and be recirculated into the environment. Second, toxic materials must not be recirculated: if toxic materials are circulated rather than isolated, we call this situation a disaster. Whether mass-culled animal carcasses, chemical waste from factories, or over one kilogram per person per day of household garbage, the troubling remnants of contemporary material civilization are buried and rendered invisible by being sent to designated burial grounds such as landfills. However, this system struggles with limitations in terms of both space and time: the questions remain whether there is enough landfill space, and whether there is enough technology to isolate the toxic waste permanently. Even if there is space for hazardous materials, there is a time-related limitation regarding how long the ground can safely contain them. If the ground fails to isolate hazardous materials at some point in the future, the soil will visibly reappear before our eyes with different colors than soil color, contaminated with various dangerous substances. The earthen pillars at the exhibition still solidly contained the waste within them. It seemed as if the horizontal ground had risen up, carrying this refuse not in revenge for its contamination, but as a quiet warning, reminding us of what has been rendered invisible.



An exhibition does not end within the exhibition space alone. I had stared intently at the artworks while I was there, but in worrying too much about what I was supposed to read out of them, I probably failed to truly confront their material presence at that time. I took photographs, fearing I might forget what I had seen when it came time to write. Looking at those images later, the materiality of the substances came to me even more vividly than when I saw them with the naked eyes. Perhaps it was because the camera had magnified the details. The works in the exhibition, I realized, were not composed of just salt rocks, soil, and ropes. It was only when I looked at the photographs that I began to sense the presence of the materials listed in the titles, including iron oxide, indigo, cement, lime, and natural pigments. I also began to think about the artist’s labor, shaping, twisting, painting, and tying all these materials into specific forms. Later, I found installation views on the artist’s website that my camera angles had not been able to capture. Through them, I came to realize again that the exhibition was, in fact, filled with bright and varied colors. Set against the sterile white backdrop of the exhibition space that resembled a laboratory, the hues of the salt rocks, ropes, and earthen pillars appeared vivid and beautiful. While I had focused only on the slackened parts of the ropes, or on how a knot alone cannot fulfill its function of pulling or tightening, surely the artist had spent months assembling, tying, connecting, pulling, and securing each knot in accordance with the rope’s original purpose. These knots were undoubtedly beautiful works, not “entanglement” dysfunctionally and harmfully binding things together that should not be entangled. The salt rocks, located at the very bottom of the value-added chain and perhaps containing stories of extraction and exploitation, sat here carefully placed by the artist in the form of a viewing stone. It rested gracefully, like the Grand Dame, and this impression came across even more clearly in the photographs. The seven earthen pillars, too, were not simply about waste or contamination. Rather, they held the artist’s personal memories and stories. Although they contained refuse, the earthen pillars, as captured in the photographs, did not appear as if they were rising from sickened soil. They looked instead like seven gentle companions standing at our eye level, quietly greeting those who passed by.

Though the pathological narrative of the material world I read through the lens of the twentieth century felt poignant, I began to understand why these works did not come across as a shrill “indictment” of the distorted relationship between humans and materials. Revisiting the exhibition through photographs became the moment when I most concretely experienced the abstract notion of “beauty” that the artist seeks to create and communicate.



My anxiety about potential misinterpreting the artist’s intentions, the meaning of the materials or the symbolism of the exhibition, and my question of whether I could still be fair while bringing my own narrative resources to the writing could be partly resolved by relying on the notion of “contact”. I hope this, too, was a proper way of respecting the artist's work and the materials that comprise it. I also hope that this, too, could be another way of engaging in sincere communication. Finally, I look forward to and support the artist’s future work, which will continue to explore the relationship between humans and materials in depth.


[1] This direct quote comes from the syllabus of my “Environmental Sociology Research” course for this semester.

[2] This paragraph’s reference to Himalayan salt rock draws on the following article: Diaa Hadid and Abdul Sattar, “Pakistan Wants You To Know: Most Pink Himalayan Salt Doesn’t Come From India,” NPR, October 3, 2019.

[3] Mariana Walter, et al., “The Politics of ‘Green’ Extraction Frontiers: Mapping Metals and Mineral Mining Conflicts Related to the Energy Transition in the Americas,”Critical Sociology (2024) ; Siddharth Kara, Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives (St. Martin’s Press, 2023). The book asserts that “As of 2022, there is no such thing as a clean cobalt supply chain of cobalt from the Congo. […] The global cobalt supply chain is the mechanism that transforms the dollar-a-day wages of the Congo’s artisanal miners into multibillion-dollar quarterly profits at the top of the chain.”

[4] Hyun-A Yom, “13 Years, the Most Common Marine Debris Found in Korean Waters Was ‘Rope,’” Chosun Ilbo, June 25, 2023.

[5] This discussion of waste isolation is based on the presentation manuscript I prepared for the seminar “Exploring Legal Frameworks for Environmental Protection and Resource Circulation in the COVID-19 Era,” hosted by Law Firm Hwawoo on June 4, 2021.