Finding Meaning in Grains of Salt

In a dark basement room at the Arlington Arts Center, Young Kim has been sifting powdered red clay onto flattened piles of table salt.

Lots of table salt. The artist, who teaches photography at North Carolina's Elon University, estimates that he'll have gone through 600 to 700 pounds of Morton salt by the time his installation is done. It's called "Salt and Earth," in a nod to both his raw materials and the preciousness of life ("salt of the earth" meaning of great worth).

Ten photographic portraits -- reproduced as silkscreens, where the "paper" is the white salt and the "ink" is the dark powder -- sit on the gallery floor. Each is of a stranger Kim met on the street. The subjects' eyes are closed, as if sleeping or dead. At the base of each work is an offering-like bowl containing one of 10 elements essential to life, according to one early Latin translation of the Bible. Cotton (for clothing) is in one bowl; wine, honey and flour are among the others.

The work's impermanence is deliberate. At the end of the show, it will be swept up like a Buddhist sand mandala. In between, it may start to fall apart, disturbed by visitors' footsteps. That's okay, too, Kim says. Nothing lasts forever. Not pictures, or the people in them.

His interest in what he calls "the transient and ephemeral" goes all the way back to photography's roots in the camera obscura, an optical device like a pinhole camera that would project -- but only temporarily -- a scene against a wall or screen. "How do we fix it?" Kim asks, echoing the question that lies at the heart of artists' efforts to freeze a moment in time. "The idea of now is ever so elusive."

"Salt and Earth" is part of the center's "Winter Solos 2007" show, opening Friday with a reception from 6 to 9, along with the group show "Hope and Fear."

Winter Solos 2007: Young Kim, Jennifer Levonian, Joe Mannino and Hope and Fear All through Jan. 19 at the Arlington Arts Center, 3550 Wilson Blvd., Arlington (Metro: Virginia Square-GMU) Contact:703-248-6800. http://www.arlingtonartscenter.org. Hours: Open Tuesday-Saturday 11 to 5. Admission: Free.