Kimsooja
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Kimsooja (; born 1957) is a South Korean, multi-disciplinary conceptual artist based in New York, Paris, and Seoul. Her practice combines performance, film, photo, and site-specific installation using textile, light, and sound. Kimsooja's work investigates questions concerning the conditions of humanity, while engaging issues of aesthetics, culture, politics, and the environment. Her principle of ‘non-doing’ and ‘non-making,’ which follows a conceptual and structural investigation of performance through modes of mobility and immobility, inverts the notion of the artist as the predominant actor. Kimsooja's recent major projects include ''Sowing into Painting'', Wanas Konst, Sweden, ''Traversées\Kimsooja,'' Poitiers, France (2019-2020), ''To Breathe,'' Public Commission for the new metro station Mairie de Saint-Ouen in Paris (2020), 21st century new stained-glass commission for the Saint-Etienne Cathedral in Metz, France (2021), Asia Society Triennial, New York (2020). Kimsooja has exhibited in major museums and institutions around the world, including Peabody Essex Museum (2019); Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Chapel (2018-2019);
Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) is a contemporary visual and performance arts venue located in a heritage-listed building in Perth, Western Australia. History 1896–1959: Schools The building at 53 James Street, Northbridge, which ...
(2018); Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein (2017); MMCA Korea (2016); Centre Pompidou Metz (2015); Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2015); Vancouver Art Gallery (2013); Museum of Modern Art Saint-Etienne (2012);
Pérez Art Museum Miami The Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM)—officially known as the Jorge M. Pérez Art Museum of Miami-Dade County—is a contemporary art museum that relocated in 2013 to the Museum Park in Downtown Miami, Florida. Founded in 1984 as the Center for t ...
(PAMM) (2012); Baltic Center for Contemporary Art Gateshead, UK (2009); BOZAR, Brussels (2008); Crystal Palace, Museum Reina Sofia, Spain (2006); The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens (2005); Kunstmuseum Palast Düsseldorf (2004); Museum of Contemporary Art in Lyon (2003); PAC Milan (2003); Kunsthalle Wein (2002); Kunsthalle Bern (2001);
MoMA PS1 MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution located in Court Square in the Long Island City neighborhood in the borough of Queens, New York City. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, the ...
(2001);
Rodin Gallery Plateau (formerly called Rodin Gallery) was an art gallery in South Korea on Taepyeongno street in Jongno-gu, a central district of Seoul. The gallery contained sculptures of Auguste Rodin (1840–1917). It opened on the first floor of Samsung Life ...
, Leeum Samsung Museum of Fine Art (2000); ICC Tokyo (2001); and CCA Kitakyushu (1999

Kimsooja represented Korea for the
55th Venice Biennale The 55th Venice Biennale was an international contemporary art exhibition held in 2013. The Venice Biennale takes place biennially in Venice, Italy. Artistic director Massimiliano Gioni curated its central exhibition, "The Encyclopedic Palace". ...
Korean Pavilion The Korean pavilion houses South Korea's national representation during the Venice Biennale arts festivals. Background Organization and building The Korean Pavilion, designed by Seok Chul Kim and Franco Mancuso, was built between 1994 ...
(2013), and for the 24th São Paulo Biennale (1998), participated in Kassel Documenta 14: ANTIDORON – The EMST Collection (2017), and has taken part in international biennials and triennials: Busan (2016, 2002), Venice (2019, 2013, 2007, 2005, 2001, 1999), Gwangju (2012, 2002,1995), Moscow(2009), Istanbul (1997), Lyon(2002), and Manifesta 1 (1996) among others.


Name

After having to pick a domain name for her website, Kimsooja thought about the conceptual implications of combining her name into one word. She commemorated this act in a conceptual piece titled ''A One-Word Name Is An Anarchist's Name'' (2003). Kimsooja links this project along with sharing the importance of her name and describes this action as, "A one word name refuses gender identity, marital status, socio-political or cultural and geographical identity by not separating the family name and the first name..."


Early career

Kimsooja was born in
Daegu Daegu (, , literally 'large hill', 대구광역시), formerly spelled Taegu and officially known as the Daegu Metropolitan City, is a city in South Korea. It is the third-largest urban agglomeration in South Korea after Seoul and Busan; it is ...
, South Korea, in 1957. She studied Western painting at the Hongik University in Seoul and her origin as a painter was a crucial starting point for the development of her art. While in University, she discovered her love for understanding the connection of aesthetics and human psychology which lead to the motive behind many of her works. Kimsooja references, from her first work to her most recent, how humans react to fabric, paint, sculpture and more, and how we experience the world as humans. Kimsooja's "Sewing" series (1983–1992), her first work with fabric, brought forth an assemblage of fabric forming cruciform structures that synthesized an entangled and knotted vision of the world into a system of horizontals and verticals.Suh Young–hee, Contemplating a System of Horizontals and Verticals, Vancouver Art Museum, 2013. Like the Spatialist painter
Lucio Fontana Lucio Fontana (; 19 February 1899 – 7 September 1968) was an Argentine-Italian painter, sculptor and theorist. He is mostly known as the founder of Spatialism. Early life Born in Rosario, to Italian immigrant parents, he was ...
, who pierced the uni-colored canvas with a sharped-edged dagger, Kimsooja also made art that was no longer a screen of illusion but a three-dimensional structure as she weaved through the surface of the work, piercing holes into it. These early sewn works, in turn, were inspired by the fabric and clothes that her grandmother had owned, while also fueled by Kimmsoja's own interest in the traditional association between female labour and needlework in Korean culture. Subsequent to a residency at
MoMA PS1 MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution located in Court Square in the Long Island City neighborhood in the borough of Queens, New York City. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, the ...
in 1992–93, Kimsooja initiated a series of site-specific installations that found their origin in the Korean color spectrum ('' obangsaek'').Mello Laetitia, The Pilgrimage of Our Own Existence, Arte Al Limite, Published by Arte Al Limite, March 2012. Pp.30-38 She created sculptures inspired from Korean bedcover cloth bundles that are associated in Korean culture with travel and migration, and may also be interpreted in her work as an allusion to restrictions on female activities. These bedcover bundles inspired the title of a number of sculptures and installation works that Kimsooja titled after the Korean word, ''bottari'', that intimates the idea of travel but also refers to concepts of wrapping and unfolding. In 1992, the installation
Deductive Objects
', shown at
MoMA PS1 MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution located in Court Square in the Long Island City neighborhood in the borough of Queens, New York City. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, the ...
, took up an entire brick wall where small torn pieces of used Korean bedcover fabric were inserted by the artist in tiny holes between the bricks. The sculptural elements alongside the wall installation were composed of everyday objects wrapped in ''Bottari'' cloth, such as a carrier, a doorframe, a hook, a saw, a spool, a shovel, a clothing rack, or a ladder. While any kind of fabric can be used to make ''bottari'', Kimsooja favours second-hand clothes to allude to the passage of time and the objects’ previous life before they were transformed into works of art. The ''bottari'' and the act of travel continue to be central themes for her work
Bottari Truck in Exile
' (1999), made on the road as a truck heaped with piles of clothing, wrapped in silk bedcovers, travelled from one location to another. Kimsooja dedicated the piece, which was presented at the Venice Biennale, to refugees of the Kosovo war.


Performance and video Works


Early performance and video works

In Kimsooja's first video performance, ''Sewing into Walking-Kyungju'' (1994), Kimsooja is seen atop the valleys of
Gwangju Gwangju () is South Korea's sixth-largest metropolis. It is a designated metropolitan city under the direct control of the central government's Home Minister. The city was also the capital of South Jeolla Province until the provincial offic ...
(formerly spelled Kwangju), South Korea, picking up scattered bedcovers on the valley's floor and wrapping them into a bundle. A year later, Kimsooja returned to the valley for the first
Gwangju Biennale The Gwangju Biennale is a contemporary art biennale founded in September 1995 in Gwangju, South Jeolla province, South Korea. The Gwangju Biennale is hosted by the Gwangju Biennale Foundation and the city of Gwangju. The Gwangju Biennale Found ...
in Korea and scattered various clothes made of traditional Korean fabrics on the ground of a forest. This installation, made of 2.5 tons of second-hand clothes and entitled ''Sewing into Walking- Dedicated to the victims of Kwangju'', commemorated the victims of the suppression of a democratic protest in Gwangju in 1980. This work established an analogy between the structure of fabric and that of the land, which was of particular importance in terms of confirming the three-dimensionality and spatial topology of fabric in Kimsooja's work, as well as establishing her body in performance as a needle that weaves through the fabric of humanity and nature.


Cities on the Move: 2727km Bottari Truck and Bottari Truck - Migrateurs

In ''Cities on the Move – 2727 km Bottari Truck','' Kimsooja sits atop a mound of ''bottari'' being transported across the country. Documenting part of her 11-day performance on her journey to places she resided before she made a cultural exile from Korea to New York at the end of the 1990s. In 2007, Kimsooja records her performance in Paris, where she contemplates our reality of constant migration in a global society that drives us as migrateurs of every society we come from and are heading toward. ''The Bottari Truck - Migrateurs'' was made of local immigrants’ bedcovers and used clothing donated from all over Paris that was loaded on top of an old French Peugeot pick-up truck. Kim started from ‘Place de la Liberation’ where Musée MAC/VAL, which commissioned the piece, is located, and at the same time which is just on the border of south east of Paris, where many immigrants from China, the Middle East, Africa and Europe live. She moves on to different neighborhoods of Paris, which signifies the history of immigrants in France: Ivry (large Chinese community), Place d’Italy, Bastille, Place de la Republic, Canal Saint-Martin(which used to have tents along the canal area from homeless people, now much cleaned, making a water tunnel), Gare du Nord, Goutte d’Or (a large African, Middle Eastern, Indian community), to the destination ‘Église Saint-Bernard’, where most of the illegal immigrants settled down and protested their right to live in France in 1996; that has become a big political issue in French society.


A Needle Woman

In 1999, Kimsooja presented her most iconic work: '' A Needle Woman'', a performance video piece that premiered at CCA Kitakyushu and further evolved in subsequent showings as a multi-channel video projection. In ''A Needle Woman'', the artist is seen with her back facing the camera, wearing precisely the same clothes and standing precisely the same way in various metropolises:Madoff, Steven Henry, "Gnomon of Place, Gnomon of foreignness." Host & Guest catalogue for group exhibition at Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2013 Tokyo, Shanghai, Delhi, New York, Mexico City, Cairo, Lagos, London, Patan, Nepal (1999–2001); and in a second series of performances: Havana, Cuba; N’Djamena, Chad; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Sana’a, Yemen; and Jerusalem (2005). Some locations visited in the work are places of violence, disrepair, or unresolved conflict, lending to the needle a metaphoric function as an instrument of healing. Also in ''A Laundry Woman'' (2000), a performance video piece shot in India, Kimsooja is seen immobile and standing in front of a river where debris seemingly drift. ''A Needle Woman'' and ''A Laundry Woman'' exposed the artist's stances on non-doing and immobility as a form of art practice; specifically, lending to the action of immobility the virtue of inverting an audience's linear perception of space and time. The first version of ''A Needle Woman'' presented the artist laying horizontally on a rock and it established nature and spatial orientation as a central subject in her work. As well, her use of the Korean color spectrum ('' Obangsaek''), in which each color stands for a cardinal direction in Korean tradition, took up great importance.


Other video and film works

For ''A Mirror Woman: The Sun and The Moon'', commissioned by the Shiseido Art Foundation in 2008, Kimsooja filmed the sun setting and the moon rising along the beach of Goa, India. The artist then digitally layered an eclipse, in which the footage of the Sun and the Moon were fused togethe

In ''Earth – Water – Fire – Air'', a multi-channel video projection that premiered at the 2009 Lanzarote Biennale, Spain, the fusion of basic elements was grasped live by the artist on the Island of
Lanzarote Lanzarote (, , ) is a Spanish island, the easternmost of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. It is located approximately off the north coast of Africa and from the Iberian Peninsula. Covering , Lanzarote is the fourth-largest of the i ...
in the Canary Island, Guatemala, and Greenland. Here, the concept of fusion enhanced the idea of earlier experiments in immobility, continually incarnated in the artist's persistent representation of permanence and impermanence, horizontal and vertical structures, the forward and backward movements of sewing. Starting in 2010, Kimsooja initiated a 16mm film project entitled '' Thread Routes''. Divided into six chapters, the series unfolds as an anthropological poem that takes the act of threading as a central subject. It takes place in six different cultural zones around the world, its six preliminary chapters shot in Peru, Europe, India, China, North America, and North Africa. ''To Breathe: Invisible Mirror/ Invisible Needle'', which premiered at
La Fenice Teatro La Fenice (, "The Phoenix") is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of "the most famous and renowned landmarks in the history of Italian theatre" and in the history of opera as a whole. Especially in the 19th century, La Fenice bec ...
, Venice in 2006, was a nine-minute video projection of a color spectrum that filled the entirety of the theater's stage. A five-channel audio track entitled ''The Weaving Factory'' (2004) accompanied the piece, forming a couplet of inhalation and exhalation of the artist's own breathing that became increasingly less agile as the color spectrum continued its gestation.Ricky D'ambrose, Kim Sooja: To Breathe: Invisible Mirror / Invisible Needle, les presses du reel, 2013


Site-specific installations

Over the last two decades, Kimsooja has developed works that uses lights and color–in parallel to Obangseak color spectrum, which represents 5 cardinal directionality in Korean philosophy–in response to many historical and modern buildings. ''A Lighthouse Woman'' (2002) was a site-specific installation where Kimsooja used light, color, and sound to transform the abandoned lighthouse in Morris Island (Charleston, South Carolina) for the 2002 Spoleto Festival. ''A Lighthouse Woman'' inaugurated a series of work the artist created as memorial projects that includes: ''Sewing Into Walking - Dedicated to the victims of Kwangju'' (1995); ''Planted Names'' (2002); ''Mandala: Chant for Auschwitz'' (2010); and ''A Mirror Woman: The Ground of Nowhere'' (2003). 7Another commemorative work, Kimsooja's ''An Album: Hudson Guild'', is a video project created in collaboration with the Hudson Guild Senior Center in Chelsea, New York, in 2009. ''To Breathe – A Mirror Woman'', was developed for the
Palacio de Cristal The Palacio de Cristal ("Glass Palace") is a conservatory located in the Buen Retiro Park in Madrid, Spain. The Palacio de Cristal, in the shape of a Greek cross, is made almost entirely of glass set in an iron framework on a brick base, which ...
in Madrid in 2006, was a mirror installation that covered the flooring of the Palacio. The entire cupola of the palace was covered with a translucent film that diffracted daylight and the Palacio was also replete with the sound of the artist's breathing.Doris Van Drathen, Standing at the Point Zero Catalogue for a solo exhibition Kimsooja, ''A Mirror Woman: The Sun & The Moon'' at the Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo, Published by Shiseido Corporate Culture Department, 2008 In ''Lotus: Zone of Zero'' was first installed at Palais Rameau, Lille, Kimsooja hung six rows of concentric circles consisting of 384 temple lanterns in the shape of lotus blossoms from the glass pavilion. Six speakers aligned the circle simultaneously played Gregorian,
Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken diale ...
, and
Islamic Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ma ...
chants, which echoed throughout the room and united at the hollow center. According to Kimsooja, this is the realm of "Zero," in which different faiths form a harmonious union that transcends into a space for meditation and contemplation. The many lanterns hung overhead were meant to humble the viewer and remind them of their relationship with their community. Kimsooja created ''Lotus: Zone of Zero'' in response to the
Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...
; she wanted to create a place where different religions and people of different cultures could live in a state of harmonious coexistence. Kimsooja represented Korea for the South Korean pavilion at the 55th
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
in 2013. For the piece entitled ''To Breathe: Bottari'', Kimsooja wrapped the entirety of the national pavilion's interior with a translucent film that diffracted daylight, showering the internal structure with spectrums of light. Her sound piece ''The Weaving Factory'' (2004–2013) also filled the pavilion with the sound of the artist inhaling and exhaling. These aspects of light and sound were further heightened by ''To Breathe: Blackout'' (2013), an anechoic chamber where the audience would be cast in complete darkness and devoid of sound except for that of the viewer's own body. Other notable public commissions include: ''A Needle Woman: Galaxy was a Memory, Earth is a Souvenir'' (2014), a monumental 46-foot-tall sculpture commissioned and installed for the Cornell Council for the Arts 2014 Biennial on the campus of
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
; and ''Mandala: Zone of Zero'', which premiered at The Project in New York City in 2003 and consisted of the sound of Tibetan, Gregorian, and Islamic chants animating a large target-shaped jukebox. In 2019, Kimsooja takes over the City of Poitiers for the first edition of Traversées, a new international artistic and cultural event, closely linked to the fate of a major landmark, the Palace of the Dukes of Aquitaine, and its surrounding district, the heart of the city's history and heritage. Fo
Traversées\Kimsooja
curated by the artistic directors Emma Lavigne and Emmanuelle de Montgazon, the artist presented more than a dozen specific installations within the historic monuments of the city, including ''Archive of Mind'' (2019), ''To Breathe'' (2019), ''To Breathe - The Flags'' (2019), and ''Bottari 1999-2019'' (2019) consisting in a shipping container painted using Obangseak colors and filled with the artist's personal belongings, accumulated in her New York apartment over twenty years. Kimsooja wraps her belongings in a container, and transports them from one continent to another, a metaphor for her perpetual nomadic Bottari. In 2020, Kimsooja is the first contemporary artist of the 21st century to have been commissioned permanent stained glasses for the Metz Cathedral in France. In the summer of 2020, Kimsooja opened up a new installation in Wanås, Sweden called "Sowing into Painting" where she featured film, sculpture, painting, and planting. This projected was created with the idea of, "By planting a field of flax plants, she metaphorically encapsulates the entire cycle of material production and considers the interplay of impermanence and perpetuity, and of life and art. These plants, which are grown and harvested in a period of several months, will transform into paintings that could last for centuries."


Exhibitions (selection)

*''We Do Not Dream Alone'', Inaugural Asia Society Triennial, New York, USA, 2020.
''Kimsooja: Sowing into Painting'', Wanås Foundation, Wanås, Sweden, 2020.''Traversées\Kimsooja'', Inaugural biennale featuring more than ten site-specific installations, Poitiers, France, 2019.''Kimsooja: To Breathe'', Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, UK, 2019.''Kimsooja: Archive of Mind'', Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, USA, 2019.''Zone of Nowhere'', PICA, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth, Australia, 2018.
*''To Breathe - The Flags'', Perth Festival, Perth, Australia, 2018.
''Weaving the World'', Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz, Liechtenstein, 2017.''KIMSOOJA / Archive of Mind'', MMCA, Seoul, Korea, 2016.Kimsooja, ''To Breathe'', Centre Pompidou Metz, 2015.

Kimsooja, ''Thread Routes'', Guggenheim Bilbao, 2015.

Kimsooja, ''To Breathe: Bottari'', The Korean Pavilion, 55th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 2013.


* Kimsooja, ''Mumbai: A Laundry Field'', Feldkirch Church, Co-organized by Kunstmuseum Lichtenstein, Lichtenstein, 2010. * ''A Needle Woman'' - Paris, Hôtel De Ville Paris, Commissioned by Nuit Blanche, Paris, France, 2009. * ''Black Box: Kimsooja'', Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., United States, 2008. * Kimsooja, ''To Breathe - A Mirror Woman'', a site-specific installation at the Crystal Palace, commissioned by Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2006. * Kimsooja, ''To Breathe / Respirare'', A Site-Specific Installation at La Fenice Theater, in conjunction with a joint Solo Exhibition at Fondazione Bevilacqua la Masa, Venice, Italy, 2006. * Kimsooja, ''To Breathe: Invisible Mirror / Invisible Needle'', Theatre Chatelet, Commissioned by Nuit Blanche Paris, France, 2006. * Kimsooja, ''A Wind Woman'', The Project, New York, United States, 2006. * Kimsooja, ''A Wind Woman'', Peter Blum Gallery, Chelsea New York, 2006. * Kimsooja, ''Conditions of Humanity'', traveling solo show, Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf, Germany; Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, PAC, Milan; Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon 2004. * Kimsooja, ''A Laundry Woman'', Kunsthalle, Wien, Austria, 2002.
Kimsooja, ''A Needle Woman'', P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center / MOMA, New York, United States, 2001.
* Kimsooja, ''A Needle Woman'', Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, Switzerland 2001. * Kimsooja, ''Bottari'', Sprengel Museum, Hanover, Germany, 2001. * Kimsooja, ''A Needle Woman'', ICC, Tokyo, Japan, 2000. * Kimsooja, ''Bottari Truck in Exile'', 48th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 1999.


Awards, fellowships and commissions (selection)


Asia Society Arts Award, Hong Kong, 2017Kim Se-Choong Sculpture Award, Seoul, Korea, 2017Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French Minister of Culture, France, 2017Ho-Am prize for the Arts, Ho-Am foundation, South Korea, 2016
* ''A Needle Woman: Galaxy was a Memory, Earth is a Souvenir'', commissioned by CCA on the occasion of first Cornell University Biennale Ithaca, New York, 2014.
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 2014.
* Grant recipient, New York State Council on the Arts, New York An Album: Hudson Guild commissioned by More Art, New York, 2009. * ''A Needle Woman'' - Paris, Hôtel De Ville Paris, Commissioned by Nuit Blanche, Paris, France, 2009. * Grant recipient, New York State Council of the Arts, ''An Album: Hudson Guild'', commissioned by More Art, New York, 2009. * Musee d'Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne, 2008. * Kimsooja, ''To Breathe: Invisible Mirror / Invisible Needle'', Theatre Chatelet, Commissioned by Nuit Blanche Paris, France, 2006. * Korea Culture & Arts Foundation Grant, Seoul, for ''Always a Little Further'', the 51st Venice Biennale, Arsenale, Venice, 2005. * Anonymous Was A Woman Foundation Award, New York, Artist of the American Art Award, Whitney Museum of America, Sponsored by Cartier Co., New York, 2002. * Korea Culture & Arts Foundation Award, Seoul, Award for the Best Show of the Year 2000, for the solo exhibition ''A Needle Woman – A Woman Who Weaves the World'' at Rodin Gallery, Samsung Art Museum, Seoul, 2001. * Paradise Culture Foundation Award, Seoul, 2000. * Residency Award, World Views – at World Trade Center, New York, awarded by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York, 1998. * Artist in Residence, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, 1992–93. * The 11th Suk-Nam Fine Art Award, Seoul, 1992. * Song-Un culture Foundation Award, Seoul, 1991.


Biennials and triennials (selection)

*''Traversées\Kimsooja'', Inaugural biennale featuring more than ten site-specific installations, Poitiers, France, 2019 *''The Second Yinchuan Biennale'', Museum of Contemporary Art Yinchuan, Yinchuan, China, 2018 *''Documenta 14: ANTIDORON - The EMST Collection'', Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, 2017 *''Socle du Monde Biennale'', HEART Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Herning, Denmark, 2017 *''Inhabiting the World'' - Busan Biennale 2014, Busan, South Korea 2014. * ''Intimate Cosmologies: The Aesthetics of Scale in an Age of Nanotechnology''. The 1st Cornell University Biennale Ithaca, New York, 2014. * The International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, 2014. * Korean Pavilion, The 55th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy 2013. * ''ROUNDTABLE'', The 9th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea, 2012. * Beyond Mediations, Poznan Biennale, Zamek Art Center, Poznan, Poland, 2010. * ''Dress Codes'', The Third ICP Triennial of Photography and Video, International Center for Photography, New York, United States, 2009. * ''Against Exclusion'' - The 3rd Moscow Biennale, The Garage, Moscow, Russia, 2009. * The 4th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennial, 2009. * ''Always a Little Further'', The 51st Venice Biennale, Arsenale, Venice, Italy, 2005. * The 10th Biennial of Moving Images, Geneva, Switzerland, 2003. * ''Ideal City - Solares'', the 2nd Valencia Biennale, Valencia, Spain, 2003. * 71st Whitney Biennial, Central Park, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, United States, 2002. * The 1st Busan Biennale,
Metropolitan Museum The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
, Busan, South Korea, 2002. * ''Sharing Exotism'', The 5th Biennale de Lyon, Halle Tony Garnier, Lyon, France, 2000. * ''D'APERTutto'', The 48th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 1999. * Third Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art,
Queensland Art Gallery The Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) is an art museum located in South Bank, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The gallery is part of QAGOMA. It complements the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) building, situated only away. The Queensland Art Galler ...
, Brisbane, Australia, 199

* The 24th São Paulo Biennial, São Paulo, Brazil, 1998. * Manifesta 1, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 1996. * The 1st Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea, 1995.


Further reading

* Laeticia Mello, ''The Pilgrimage of our Own Existence'', Arte Al Limite, Published by Arte Al Limite March 2012, pp. 30–38 * Seungduk Kim, Centripedal Acceleration, Kimsooja ''To Breathe: Bottari'', les presses du reel, 2013. * Suh Young – Hee: ''Contemplating a system of horizontals and Verticals'', in ''Kimsooja: Unfolding'', Vancouver Art Gallery, 2013. * ''Cities on the Move'', exhibition catalogue, Art-Worlds in Dialogue: From ''Gauguin to the Global Present'', Museum Ludwig Cologne, 2000. * Steven Henry Madoff, ''Gnomon of Place, Gnomon of foreignness'', Host and Guest, Catalogue for group exhibition at Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Published by Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2013. * "MoMA PS1: Exhibitions: Kim Sooja: A Needle Woman." Accessed March 27, 2018. http://momaps1.org/exhibitions/view/24. * Ingrid Commandeur, ''Kimsooja: Black holes, Meditative Vanishings and Nature as a Mirror of the Universe'', in Windflower, Perceptions of Nature, NAI and Kroller-Muller Museum, 2012. * Antonio Geusa, ''Calm Chaos: Earth, Water, Fire, Air'', Permm Museum, Russia, 2012. * David Morgan, ''Kimsooja and the Art of Place'', in Kimsooja Unfolding, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2014. * Biography, ''Kimsooja To Breather Bottari'', les presses du reel 2013. * Ricky D'ambrose, Kim Sooja: ''To Breathe: Invisible Mirror / Invisible Needle'', les presses du reel, 2013. * Doris Van Drathen, ''Standing at the Point Zero'', Catalogue of Kimsooja A Mirror Woman: The Sun & The Moon, Foundation d'Entreprise Hermes, 2008, pp. 30–35. * ''Kimsooja: Ways Of Being'', A conversation between Daina Augaitis and Kimsooja, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2013. * Ackland, Art Museum. ''Five Artists, Five Faiths: Spirituality in Contemporary Art''. Chapel Hill, N.C: Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2004. * Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, and Stuttgart Staatsgalerie. ''Art & Textiles: Fabric as Material and Concept in Modern Art from Klimt to the Present''. Edited by Markus Brüderlin, Hartmut Böhme, and Amy Klement. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2013.


References


External links

* * Cornell Council for the Arts, http://cca.cornell.edu/?p=galaxy-was-a-memory-earth-is-a-souvenir * Anita Hackethal

* Peter Blum Gallery, https://web.archive.org/web/20150218213857/http://peterblumgallery.com/exhibitions/2006/kimsooja-a-wind-woman/press-release. * * Kimsooja featured on PB
Art21
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kimsooja 1957 births Living people 20th-century women artists 21st-century women artists Hongik University alumni Performance artists South Korean video artists South Korean emigrants to the United States People from Daegu South Korean women artists South Korean contemporary artists Installation artists Recipients of the Ho-Am Prize in the Arts