Kimsooja

Kimsooja is a globally renowned conceptual artist whose work is showcased in numerous international museums and galleries, as well as at public art fairs and various other venues.

Biography of Kimsooja

Kimsooja was born in 1957 in Daegu, South Korea. In 1980, she received a BA from Hong-IK University in Seoul, where she attended the Painting Department. Four years later, the artist obtained an MFA from the same institution. 

After studying painting in Seoul, Kimsooja participated in a lithography residency at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1984 to 1985.

Since the start of her artistic career in the 1980s, she has explored innovative forms of expression, incorporating new conceptual methodologies into her painting practice. She has received many prestigious awards, including the Lucas van Leyden Fund (2020), the HO-AM Prize for lifetime achievement in the arts (2015), the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (2013-2014), and most recently, the Okgwan Order of Cultural Merit in Seoul, Korea (2021).

Kimsooja represented Korea at the 55th Venice Biennale Korean Pavilion (2013) and the 24th São Paulo Biennale (1998). She also participated in Kassel Documenta 14 (2017) and has been involved in various international biennials and triennials.

Her solo exhibitions have been held at various galleries and museums worldwide, including Tanja Bonakdar Gallery in New York,  Museum de Lakenhal in Leiden, Galerie Tschudi in Zürich, Kewenig Gallery in Berlin, Galerie Lafayette Haussmann in Paris, Axel Vervoordt Gallery in Hong Kong,  Wanås Konst Sculpture Park in Wanås, and many more.

Additionally, Kimsooja's works have been featured in numerous group shows, including "Light: Visionary Perspectives" at Aga Khan Museum in Toronto (2024), "Ambienti 1956-2010 - Environments by Women Artists II" at MAXXI in Rome (2024), "Thread Routes" at Massimo De Carlo in London (2023), "Fabric" at Peter Blum Gallery in New York (2023), "Line Up" at Galerie Tschudi in Zürich (2022), among others.

Currently, the artist divides her time between New York City, Paris, and Seoul.

Kimsooja's Art Style

Kimsooja is a globally acclaimed conceptual artist known for exploring the human condition in her work. By transforming form into action and leveraging the materiality of her mediums, she addresses issues of aesthetics and humanism, leading us to a heightened state of awareness. Her practice integrates performance, film, photography, and site-specific installations, employing textile, light, and sound.

In her ongoing quest to transcend the material and enter the non-material realm, Kimsooja's work delves into concepts of "non-doing" and "non-making." Her art transforms ordinary actions into moments of meditation and transcendence, turning processes like wrapping and unfolding, tying and untying, and connecting and disconnecting into a means of bridging various dualities and shifting from the material to the immaterial.

While at university, Kimsooja developed a deep interest in the interplay between aesthetics and human psychology, a fascination that has become central to her work. From her earliest pieces to her most recent, Kimsooja explores how people interact with materials like fabric, paint, and sculpture, and how these interactions shape our experience of the world.

Kimsooja's "Sewing" series (1983–1992), her initial foray into working with fabric, presented a complex arrangement of horizontal and vertical systems. By incorporating fabric reminiscent of bottari, a traditional Korean wrapping cloth often made and used by women, she created cruciform structures that wove together an intricate, knotted vision of society and the world. Her use of fabric transformed these elements into a cohesive system of horizontals and verticals.

In 1999, the artist debuted her most iconic work, "A Needle Woman," a performance video piece first shown at CCA Kitakyushu and later developed into a multi-channel video projection. In "A Needle Woman," the artist appears with her back to the camera, dressed in identical clothing and striking the same pose across various cities. Many of these locations are marked by violence, disrepair, or unresolved conflict, which imbues the needle with a metaphorical role as a tool of healing.

Over the past two decades, Kimsooja has created works incorporating light and color, drawing on the Obangseak color spectrum that symbolizes the five cardinal directions in Korean philosophy. These pieces respond to various historical and contemporary buildings.