Behind the Lens With Rising NSFW Photographer Sandy Kim

Images of blood-stained genitalia flashed before the audience’s eyes at the Aperture Gallery in Chelsea, as the photographer Sandy Kim rapidly clicked through her presentation.

“Some people who don’t know me probably think that I’m a pervert, but I’m not,” she said as she showed the audience several intimate photos of her and her friends.

Aperture Gallery hosted Kim on February 4 for its Parsons-sponsored series Artist Talk. Over 40 people trekked through the wet and icy winter night to hear Kim speak. Standing at a mere five feet, Kim was barely visible to the seated crowd as the microphone overwhelmed her face and the only thing the audience could make out was her dark curly mop of hair.

Although she has recently gained more notoriety for her commercial success – shooting for Vogue Italia, FADER Magazine, and the New York Times – Kim credits her success to the Internet generation. Kim and her friends gained attention on the web because of their willingness to show the world anything and everything.

This kind of transparency either entices or repels a viewer. Lara Casselman, an art and music blogger for Waste Magazine, is an admirer of Kim and her collective of young artists, which comprises Sandy Kim, Petra Collins, and Karley Sciortino.

“[This] group of artists are my generation’s version of transgressive art, and it’s really exciting to see the social boundaries they break down in real time,” Casselman said.

The casual, carefree feeling that exists in 19-year-old Kim’s work is similar to the nonchalant attitude that she gave off while rapidly clicking through her photo slideshow at the Aperture Gallery. Meanwhile, the audience struggled to catch a mere glimpse into her exciting world, a life of late-night rendezvouses with some of the most relevant faces of New York City’s youthful music and art scene. Illicit drugs and blatant nudity frequently make an appearance in her work, accompanied by a playful use of artificial lighting.

When asked about the content within her photographs, Kim explained, “ the photos [are] of young kids partying and doing naughty things.” She said she documents it because she doesn’t want to forget about all of the crazy and mischievous adventures that she and her friends did in their youth.

During Kim’s lecture, breasts of different shapes and skin tones flickered in front of the audience.

“The people that I shoot are my friends and you can tell that there’s a relationship there,” she explained. “With people that I don’t know you can tell [because] it’s awkward. My friends are comfortable with me.”

Her work exudes a sense of secrecy, which gave the feeling that anyone can enter Kim’s life. It’s a life that most can’t even begin to imagine living. She’s on the road and creating art with up-and-coming models, musicians, and artists in the hippest boroughs of New York City.

While she showed many photos during the lecture, the photos of Kim’s exposed and menstruating vagina are her most famous. Seeing them in ultra high resolution and four times the size that they are on a computer screen seemed to have a strong impact on the audience.

“I didn’t take the pictures for the shock factor. I think it’s natural and beautiful,” she said. “Everyone bleeds.”

Kim not only creates works where she bares a lot of herself; but she also helps her friends who happen to be models, actresses, and other artists out with similar projects. Along with fellow artist Alice Lancaster, Kim is featured in “Crimson Crusade,” a horror film directed by popular sex blogger Karley Sciortino for Purple Magazine. The plot consists of three young menstruating vigilantes whose small town’s female population is harassed and raped by men. Their solutions to freeing the town of its bad guys are to kill them and then devour their flesh. The bloodiness doesn’t stop there, as there are recurring scenes of the women with their legs sprawled open revealing white panties saturated with menstrual blood, and with that the film makes its feminist intentions apparent.

It’s the things that people would usually flinch or close their eyes at. It’s the human body in its raw and natural state. Neither Kim nor her friends have qualms with their bodies or showing it off to the world, but not everyone is as receptive to her revealing works as Casselman.

“I was a bit shocked especially at the bloody ones and I was kind of grossed out at first,” Pratt student Roslyn Fok said. Fok was keener on Kim’s less controversial photography.
“Learning about her intentions of her work really helped me appreciate her work more,” Fok said. “It’s also kind of great that she’s breaking out of Asian stereotypes and being super successful [while] doing so.”

Though Kim identifies herself to the Aperture Foundation as a “spark-plug,” George Pitts, the director of photographic practices at Parsons, described her photographs as “contaminated and messy.” Initially both Kim and the audience were caught off guard by those adjectives, but there’s an undeniable beauty to the oftentimes imperfect and lewd images. While Kim’s photography may make viewers uncomfortable, it also has the power to show just how naturally unsanitary life and love can be.