Talk about KO of the day. I'll admit I'm late to the party on this one, but I've just discovered the absolutely amazing work of NY photographer Miru Kim. I was searching the Web for information about Freedom Tunnel, an old Amtrak tunnel beneath Riverside Park housing murals to commemorate the hundreds of homeless people who lived in shantytowns there and were relocated in 1991. Then I happened on this: 
Croton aqueduct, the BronxOK, OK, you had me at Hello, I'm a beautiful naked woman traipsing around the bowels of New York...
So, who is this artist and what is her mission? Miru Kim shoots nude self-portraits in crumbling urban tunnels, morgues, catacombs, abandoned buildings, and basically anyplace there are likely giant rodents, fetid water, malodorous mold colonies, and even piles of bones (see Catacombs, below). Why, you ask, would anyone want to disrobe in such decasia? Especially someone who comes across as demure, soft-spoken, shy.
The 30-year-old Korean-American photographer explains: "I was interested in animals that dwell in these derelict places in the city. The fictional character I wanted to create had to be universal, and clothes make the living being too culturally specific and time-specific. I started modeling myself because I couldn't convince anyone to get naked in all these locations, and getting an animal to do it was even harder. Then the performance aspect of it became very appealing to me, because I started noticing how these spaces transform as soon as I take off my clothes and walk around. They become much more familiar and peaceful."
Her project name, Naked City Spleen, pays homage to Weegee's Naked City and Baudelaire's Paris spleen poetry.
Bennett School, Millbrook
I'm particularly partial to this one: Petit Ceinture, ParisAgain in Paris, here she shot the Catacombs using the warm light of carbide lamps that miners employed in their less-creative outings during the 19th century.
Not only beautifully lit but incredibly brave, cuddling up to all those bones. Yes, bones. Dating back to 60 B.C., the Catacombs hold the remains of more than 6 million people. This particular shot was taken beneath Montparnasse Cemetery.I am at this very moment trying to ignore the fact that I hear some little animal under the floorboards of my living room asserting its presence. Giving me...angst...the kind I feel sure that Miru Kim would grok. In fact she does claim considerable anxiety in entering these locations.
She notes, "I often felt . . . a kind of alienation and anxiety in urban environments, and one of the ways I could escape the negative side of that was to visit forgotten, abandoned places in the city. The feelings of isolation and loneliness I've had may be related to having moved alone to the U.S. at age 13 without knowing the language. But I think most urban-dwellers understand these feelings regardless of culture."
Revere Sugar factory, Brooklyn (currently a strip mall--pun might be intended)
“The island of Manhattan alone has such a dense, mysterious network of man-made structures soaring 1,500 feet above ground and digging 800 feet below. The 5 boroughs of NY are connected by more than 35 bridges and tunnels that make the city a miraculous feat of engineering, architecture and design, incomparable to any other. The anatomy of the city is complex, like that of a human being, both physically and psychologically,” Kim says.
Immersing herself in this vast id, Miru Kim sometimes receives unexpected visitors. In a tunnel beneath Hell's Kitchen (see 2nd photo, above), after she had just disrobed, a homeless man appeared, walking toward his campsite. After she explained that she was doing an art project, he left her to continue to shoot herself running naked through the tunnel. When she was done, he offered her his shirt to wipe the mud from her feet. “In my mind, he is a dweller in one of the darkest rooms in the collective unconsciousness of all the inhabitants of New York and possibly of all modern cities,” she posted on her website.
Showing in galleries throughout the world, Miru Kim has confirmed that this collective unconscious is a subterrain into which many are compelled to stare. Of these once magnificent, now crumbling structures, she reflects, "I am reminded of how fragile our sense of security is and how vulnerable people truly are."
