Myeongsoo Kim’s collection of Olympic-themed stamps are equal parts works of art and utilitarian objects. There is a particular timelessness to the stamps that could be described as retro-futuristic. Such an aesthetic reminds the artist of the sports movies he grew up on as a child in Seoul. While he may have been too young to understand the symbolic implications of movies like Miracle on Ice (1981) and Rocky IV (1985) in the context of Cold War–era politics, he recalls how these films and others like them fetishized the West. Kim thinks of his collection of Olympic stamps and memorabilia as an extension of this fetishization. Keeping hundreds of them in a box—some laminated, some grouped together thematically—they have become uniquely personal fetish objects.
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