GALA PORRAS-KIM

Early Years

Born in Bogotá in 1984, Gala Porras-Kim is of Colombian Korean heritage. She grew up between Colombia and the United States, experiences that inform her interest in language, migration, and cultural translation. Porras-Kim studied at the University of California, Los Angeles (BA, MA in Latin American Studies) and the California Institute of the Arts (MFA, 2009). She has lived and worked in Los Angeles and London, and has held research fellowships at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and the Getty Research Institute.

Gala Porras-Kim Artworks

Porras-Kim’s contemporary art practice is rooted in rigorous research and collaboration with museums, archaeologists, and conservators. Her artworks examine how objects are classified, preserved, and interpreted, often revealing the tensions between institutional frameworks and the layered histories of artefacts.

Institutional Critique and Knowledge Systems

Since the early 2010s, Porras-Kim has produced drawings, sculptures, and installations that probe the politics of museum collections. Projects such as Whistling and Language Transfiguration (2012) and The Mute Object and Ancient Stories of Today (2013) investigate how language and sound encode cultural memory, including efforts to preserve endangered languages like Zapotec through visual and sonic translation. Her work frequently considers the agency of objects, as in Precipitation for an Arid Landscape (2021), which reflects on the afterlives of ritual artefacts and the ethics of conservation.

Archaeology, Repatriation, and the Museum

Porras-Kim’s research-based installations often address the displacement and display of archaeological objects from Mesoamerica, Egypt, and beyond. In exhibitions such as The weight of a patina of time (Fowler Museum at UCLA, 2023) and A Hand in Nature (MOCA Cleveland, 2024), she reimagines the histories and futures of museum artefacts, questioning the authority of museums as stewards of cultural heritage. Her letters to museum officials—integral to works like Correspondences towards the living object (CAM St. Louis, 2022)—propose new models for restitution, care, and cultural sensitivity.

Language, Sound, and Material Transformation

Porras-Kim’s interdisciplinary approach extends to sound and materiality. Her installations often incorporate natural processes—such as salt crystallisation or the gradual decay of organic materials—to echo the evolving states of museum objects. She is also known for meticulous graphite drawings and sculptural reconstructions that engage with undeciphered scripts, lost languages, and the limits of translation.

Awards and Accolades

• Heinz Award for the Arts (2024)
• Radcliffe Fellowship, Harvard University (2019)
• Getty Research Institute Artist-in-Residence (2020–2022)
• Joan Mitchell Foundation Emerging Artist Grant (2016)
• Creative Capital Award (2015)
• Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award (2015)
• Artadia Award (2017)
• Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant (2017)
• California Community Foundation Fellowship (2013)

Exhibitions

Gala Porras-Kim has been the subject of both solo and group exhibitions at important institutions. Below is a selection of important exhibitions.

Solo Exhibitions

• The reflection at the threshold of a categorical division, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2025)
• A hand in nature, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (2025)
• The weight of a patina of time, Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles (2023)
• Entre lapsos de historias, Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), Mexico City (2023)
• Out of an instance of expiration comes a perennial showing, Gasworks, London (2022)
• Precipitation for an Arid Landscape, Amant, Brooklyn (2022)
• Open House: Gala Porras-Kim, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2019)

Group Exhibitions

• 35th Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil (2023)
• 14th Shanghai Biennale, China (2023)
• 60th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Italy (2024)
• Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2019, 2017)
• 13th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2021)
• Liverpool Biennial, UK (2023)
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (2021, 2017)
• Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2019, 2016)

Porras-Kim’s works are held in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Hammer Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Seoul Museum of Art, and FRAC Pays de la Loire, among others.

Website and Instagram

Gala Porras-Kim’s website can be found here.

More Reading

Her practice has been featured in Ocula Magazine.

Gala Porras-Kim FAQs

Ocula | 2025