2013

A Clue to the Recovery of Authenticity: McDonald’s

The exhibition began with the Bussot family’s memory that the first food they ate after arriving in the United States was from McDonald’s. Kim Hongrok applied diamond dust to McDonald’s hamburger wrappers collected in cities around the world. In this work, ‘diamond dust’ is not powder but very small natural diamonds with multiple facets that reflect light. By bringing discarded wrappers and valuable gemstones together in a single work, the series examines how value is made and transformed in capitalist society.

With help from people in several countries, Kim Hongrok collected hamburger wrappers from twenty countries and made thirty works. Some works from the series were shown at LA Art Show in 2014.