A laboratory of light: diverse lives in a space embraced by light

Soyeon Ahn
─ It has been my great pleasure to witness the entire process of your work for almost 40 years. From the first time I saw your work in a group exhibition in the late 1980s, to the dialogues we had during our visits to MoMA PS1 in the early 1990s. I still remember vividly the time we spent together thinking about and working on “The Tiger's Tail” exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 1995, with Mr. Nam June Paik’s support.

Your work is characterized by an exceptionally meditative and intense energy that evokes a strong sense of empathy and comfort in the viewer. Above all, each of your works has a life force that continues to change with the passage of time. For example, your artworks from the 1980s and 1990s that reflect particular issues of the time can still be reread today as a contemporary work; same artwork can be reinterpreted from many different perspectives depending on the interests of the exhibition organizers, which I believe is the unique power your artworks possess. I am drawn to this process that starts with the needle meeting the fabric or object, leading to the issues of human network created by the act of sewing, wherein the notions of movement and envelopment of the bottari (fabric bundles) extend conceptually, beyond the human world and into the universe with nature and light. In attempting to provide an overarching definition to your work, one might describe it as a “journey from point to infinity.”

The world of your work is so contemporary and comprehensive that there is little point in mentioning the temporality of each piece. So perhaps let us begin today's dialogue with a recent project that you have been tackling, and take a trip through time more freely? Among your ongoing projects, I would like to start with your work Weaving the Light (2023), which is installed in the Cisternerne at the Frederiksberg Museum in Copenhagen. I heard that you introduced light into a space with no natural light at all, since the exhibition venue is a former underground water reservoir. Please tell us about your production process.

Kimsooja
I had never worked in the dark without light, creating light and reacting to it. This time, I had to work in an old underground reservoir called Cisternerne, which is about 4,400 square meters in size and divided into three underground chambers, and it is a special space where water always maintains 100 percent humidity. Of course, we could have drained all the water out, but we did not.

When I went down into the first basement space, the floor was wet and it was very humid, the second basement was full of water compared to the first room, and the third basement was full of water. I saw the darkness, the water as a mirror, and these three basement spaces as a whole as a spectrum of experience. I wondered how I could fully interpret and materialize the situation and give the audience something special to experience. As a result, I came up with the idea of bringing artificial light into the darkness, which I had never used before.
Until then, rather than creating new architectural elements such as objects or new spaces, I had worked with the attitude of a minimal intervention to given spatial conditions, responding with the maximum possible experience. The spatial form of the Cisternerne was the same as that of the CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art in Bordeaux, France, with arched brick walls. Within this dark space, I suspended acrylic panels, which are tableaus of light, throughout the arched architectural space. I had used diffraction grating films before on arched structures with glass windows, which we didn’t have this time. So instead of glass windows, I installed a total of 48 large acrylic panels to which I adhered diffraction grating films. We used different light sources for each space and position, and by slightly adjusting the angle and intensity of the light, we created spectra of lights that interacted with one another. In a sense, I considered the entire space as a single laboratory of light.

In this laboratory of light, I tried to create a space that would gradually expand the audience's experience from the starting point to the third basement. The second basement space is filled with 10 to 20 centimeters of water, so a wooden walkway was constructed to allow visitors to reach the water's edge and view a rainbow feast of light diffused on the surface of the water by a mirror-like effect as they walk by the films.

The space always has a 100 percent humidity, and because it’s very cold in winter and there is a lot of water, it was quite a challenge to install electric lighting. However, even under the most difficult spatial conditions, the project’s success exceeded my expectations, thanks to the wealth of experience of the site crew. I feel that this project is the culmination of all my past work in expression of light, but also marks a new chapter.

Soyeon Ahn
─ It is very interesting to see this new step forward in a project that uses artificial light, a laboratory of light. We can expect even more in the future.

Kimsooja
What is also special is that I conceptualized this work and titled the exhibition "Weaving the Light." This was the concept from which this project developed. In the course of my work over the past 40 years, I have developed and experimented with sewing, weaving, and wrapping, which are all acts related to textiles; it was done through breathing, looking, and walking, as well as the everyday act of domestic labor. This time, I tried to visualize light as an act of weaving. The light actually weaves itself, but I personified the weaving subject as if I (or the audience) were weaving and creating the light, and connected it to the spectra of lights, the shape and function of the needle, so that the audience can have a proactive experience within the space.

Soyeon Ahn
─ Your previous artworks had mainly used natural lighting, which makes it more of an encounter with uncontrollable situations, created by the artist’s direction and the actual natural light that is constantly changing. As with the concept of a "laboratory of light," I get the impression that with this artwork you have begun to intervene more actively, bringing light artificially into places where there is no light, weaving and creating, so to speak.

Kimsooja
Controlling the light is a new element, and I am particularly fascinated by the unintended movements of the audience created through this process, and the moment when an infinite language of light is born through performances.

Soyeon Ahn
─ It’s great to hear about your new experiments. Looking back at your artworks from the past, you have treated "light" as a very important medium. There are other artists that deal with "light," but usually the expression takes some kind of form or shape. Your artworks, on the other hand, are formless, based on the interrelationship between light and space. Here, you took the windows of the architecture as an opportunity for the visitors to see the inside and outside spaces as a whole. I think that through light, you give a vision of infinite functionality; could you tell us a little more about what led you to work with light, and your thoughts on light?

Kimsooja
In fact, I first attempted the transition from color to light in 2003, when I used theater lighting for the first time in a collaborative project at The Kitchen, an art space in New York. Since then, I have continued to do so through video projections, which recreate theater lighting in a portable format.

At this "Spotlight Readings" at The Kitchen, organized by Linda Jablonski, the original stage lighting for To Breathe - Invisible Mirror / Invisible Needle was screen-projected for the first time as a stage piece. Before this work, I had introduced light bulbs for the first time in Deductive Object, an early work I created at MoMA's PS1 studio that used objects such as cloth, ladders, and a pasta machine. In “The Tiger's Tail” exhibition we participated together, I inserted a piece of fabric into a hole in the wall of the old warehouse, as both color and substance; installed a bottari piece in the corner of the room; and left a fluorescent light propped up on the wall.

After that, I created To Breathe - A Mirror woman (2006/08) at the Crystal Palace (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía) using natural light combined with diffraction grating film for the first time. The foundation of all the work of the painting, derived from the crisscrossed surface and structure of the warp and weft threads of the canvas cloth, was transformed into rainbow light through the prism of the nanoscale crisscrossed scratches of the grating film, which for me was the very moment when the fundamental question of painting arose. It was a turning point, and in a sense, from that moment on, my work expanded in concept and dimension from color to light.

My use of grating film is also related to the cross symbols that represent the vertical and horizontal as planes, in terms of the structure of the world, language, and spirit, which I was constantly thinking about and exploring in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I carefully observed and studied Korean architecture, furniture, the structures of the Hangul, and various manifestations of nature. I even wrote my masters thesis on them. It all accumulated for me to consider more deeply the question of flatness, as well as the surface and structure in painting.

Within a centimeter of the diffraction grating film, there are approximately 5,000 vertical and horizontal scratches on an almost nano scale, which diffract light as soon as it reaches the surface, becoming transparent and reflecting to create streaks of light in five different colors. I think it was inevitable that my long-pursued questions regarding structures of the world and the plane led me to the expression of light using diffraction grating films. My journey into light began at that point. So, I would say that the light used by other artists and my use of light have very different contexts. I treated light as a fundamental structure and material more so in the art historical context.

The opportunity at the Crystal Palace was more of a decisive blow, in that I applied to an architectural structure the expressive technique of bottari (wrapping objects with fabric into bundles), which I had already repeated for some time. My perception is that, by wrapping a vacant space, the light encounters the lives of the performers, which in turn makes the artwork embrace the various lives of the people that are living with us.

Sewing and weaving: to breathe and to live

Soyeon Ahn
─ In addition to extending the concept of weaving and using new materials and architectural structures, you have also set forth the premise of "To Breathe" in your work. You have emphasized this premise, seeing the physical space as connected to life, opening the possibility to breathe and feel together in the physical space. Can you tell us about how you have come to explore the concept of "To Breathe"?

Kimsooja
I used grating film because I saw it as a fabric, and therefore conceptually suited for the expression of bottari, or wrapping things with fabric.

In short, I incorporated the concept of "breathing," the incessant intersection of inhalation and exhalation. We consider death to be the moment when the breath ceases, so to speak. So, similarly to sewing and knitting, in incorporating breathing as a phenomenon that traverse boundaries, artworks come to connect life and death, or self and others.

In my work, which always expands dimensions and concepts as vertical and horizontal space, the issue of duality is an important axis that is constantly evolving. Duality I mean here does not end as such, but rather is infinitely generated, transformed, annihilated, mutated, and reinterpreted, which in turn creates different worlds. So, ideas usually come to me suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, and brings about a conceptual evolution in my perception of duality.

Soyeon Ahn
─ Your work inherently has a very universal message, which may feel distant from life as each of us imagine it. Nevertheless, your expression is connected to the realities of life, as if it to live and breathe on its own right. As in "A Needle Woman" series, you the artist give the concept of "breathing" to the artwork, which turns the space itself into a sort of an organism, seemingly involving even the lives of those who experience the artwork.

Kimsooja
To return again to my graduate thesis, which I wrote in the early 1980s; I wrote about the universality and heritability of symbols of verticality and horizontality, as well as cross symbols. I was very intrigued because I had seen how so many artists had worked with the cross symbols in the contemporary art world ever since the emergence of modernism. I researched why so many artists, including myself, came across the cross symbol at some point in their lives, despite contemporary art being about pursuit of originality and uniqueness. This led me to the mandala, the original form of the mind, proposed by Carl Gustav Jung. I applied this concept not only to psychological aspects but also to the plastic arts. In other words, I came to the conclusion that, since the prototype of our mind is a cross-shaped form, we inevitably encounter cross-shaped forms when we strive to reach the essence.

The title of the work "To Breathe" is the result of the simultaneous development of this metaphysical approach and material interpretation in the production process. In the same context, I thought that the bottari work, with its flatness of the cloth and the three-dimensionality of the shape wrapped inside, could convey a metaphysical and material interpretation as an object that incorporates the birth and death of our bodies, our memories, and the joys of life. Through these questions, I believe I have been able to bring the audience and the work closer together. Once again, I can express my attitude toward life and forms of expression through this thought shift: "Weaving is breathing and breathing is living.”

Soyeon Ahn
─ May I ask you a personal question? Your partner, who recently passed away, was a psychiatrist, and I know you two had many conversations with and inspired each other. When I was at the PLATEAU, Samsung Museum of Art, he once came to see my exhibition alone and left a copy of Classic of Mountains and Seas [Shan-hai Ching] with me. Given how interested he was in art, did you ever discuss your thoughts on the human and the universe, the vertical and the horizontal?

Kimsooja
It is true that we have had a great deal of dialogue over the years, but we first met when I was writing my master’s thesis. At that time, we did not discuss art in detail. I think he had very few opportunities to experience art. However, he always lived with the essential questions of life, body, and spirit in mind.

One of my older works, Deductive Object - Remembrance (1991), consists of a small piece of old cloth, tied in a circle on a wooden staff used in hand-stitched rugs for Buddhist monks to sit on for their meditations; propped up against a steel frame with circle decorations, covered with bandages. When my husband saw it, he decided to fully believe in my art and said, "I'm going to use this as a textbook for my psychiatry.”

Soyeon Ahn
─ I am sure that for him, you were someone who could visualize the concepts he had. Your artworks do not reflect any particular religion, but at the same time, they are intricately intertwined with religious elements. The artworks you mentioned, which deal with light, by nature seem to have links with the tradition of stained-glass, since they utilize the glass windows provided in the architecture. I also heard that you created the stained-glass windows for Metz Cathedral in France. I assume that this was a very special experience, distinct from making artworks for an exhibition.

Kimsooja
It was a great honor to be asked to create the permanent stained-glass windows for Metz Cathedral, known as one of the most beautiful cathedrals in France. At the same time, it was a very historic space, so I was under a lot of pressure when it came to making the work.

At first, I tried to create an experimental work with nanopolymer. However, when I actually placed the materials temporarily in the space, the distance from the audience was too great, and it was difficult to show the beauty of the details and the movement of light of the nanostructures. Above all, the cathedral is as an institution that makes decisions based on managing historical concepts, which values and must protect tradition at all costs. So, it was also difficult to get approval to use the new nanopolymer material. In the end, I proposed the alternative of using hand-crafted ancient glass and the newly developed dichroic glass together. This resulted in a better solution than using fragile nanopolymer-encrusted glass, since the dichroic glass emitted a rainbow of colors and changed its appearance as the visitors moved around. It also presented a new way of expression that was different from the classical stained glass, which all meant a lot to me. It was also significant for me because it presented a new way of expression different from classical stained glass. The French atelier Parot, which produced the stained glass, was the team that restored Notre Dame Cathedral. It was a great experience to work with the best collaborators in the production process. At the same time, it was an opportunity for me to introduce glass as a new material in my work. I continue to be inspired by the use of glass and am experimenting with it.

This project was carried out in a Catholic cathedral, but in fact, I would like to understand all religions. Of course, cathedrals feel like a familiar and friendly space to me, as both my and my husband’s families are Catholics for generations, and I attended Catholic schools for a time. However, in deciding on the color of the stained glass, I still applied the five colors of Obangsaek. It is a color system that originally appears in Taoism, Confucianism, and even Buddhism, and represents directions and dimensions. The encounter between Obangsaek and the cathedral is an interesting one, between the rainbow of the West and the colors of the East.

Furthermore, the glass windows of the cathedral were diamond-shaped, which is very meaningful to me, because in Buddhism, the diamond shape symbolizes the completed ego. This juxtaposition of multiple elements according to my own interpretation is a radical approach to a cathedral as a historical monument, but the cathedral was very accepting of it.

Soyeon Ahn
─ In the same way, you used the Obangsaek colors in your work Solarescope (2019), which was installed in Notre Dame Cathedral as part of the exhibition "Traversées / Kimsooja" (2019) in Poitiers, France. My understanding was that Obangsaek has an aspect of embracing matters that intrinsically cannot coexist. Our discussion has reminded me of the work Lotus: Zone of Zero (2011), which you and I installed in front of the Gates of Hell at the PLATEAU, Samsung Museum of Art. Sounds were emitted from a huge burning Buddha hanging from the ceiling, and you played chants of various religions in unison, right?

Kimsooja
Yes, that's right. Lotus: Zone of Zero at the PLATEAU, Samsung Museum of Art, played Tibetan Buddhist chants, Gregorian chants, and Islamic chants simultaneously, and visually showed a mandala-like burning Buddha. In a sense, it showed the tolerant attitude of Buddhism. The work expresses the hope that all religions will be reconciled and turn to an ideal world. The work was also made after the world was shaken drastically by many wars and conflicts caused due to religions. It was our message of coexistence and peace for all peoples of the world.

The work at Poitiers began with Solarescope, a projection mapping of the exterior walls of a war-torn and ruined building in gradually changing colors in all five directions, which was first shown at the 2nd Valencia Biennial in 2003. “Solarescope" means "knowledge of the earth”. By projecting light onto the walls of the building and emphasizing the walls, the intention was to draw attention to the existence of other spaces and to show the coexistence of the bifurcated spaces. This was my initial intention, but after the presentation at Notre Dame Cathedral, I made a donation so that the film would be shown every Christmas.

Soyeon Ahn
─ Your artwork Earth - Water - Fire - Air (2009), which debuted at Atelier Hermes in Seoul in 2010, was the first instance where your work with light expanded from a space of limited scale to an unlimited one. It was one of your most fundamental artworks, yet one that encompasses your practice to date, as it deals with nature itself, or the four elements of nature. The titles of each of the four elements (earth, water, fire, and wind) were embedded with deep meanings, and you presented how the four elements weave and interweave with each other.

Kimsooja
Yes, the four elements are the concept that water is not just water and fire is not just fire. They are in an interrelated dynamic, like how water always relies on fire, leaning on the wind, and depends on the earth. As the Buddhist theory of karma tells us, they are one, but they do not exist as one.

For example, I thought about water and earth in this way. First, there is water, namely the sea, which is constantly filled with still water. Then, as I look at it, I think of a mountainous landscape and find the existence of the earth there. This contemplation has developed into a concept that illustrates the relationship between nature and matter, which is important to my work.

Needles and Bottari: The Contraction and Expansion of Life

Soyeon Ahn
─ While engaging in a dialogue about light, space, and nature, I can't help but think of the needle and bottari (fabric bundles) that reflects the core philosophy of your practice. You have already mentioned it in numerous interviews, but I would like to talk about the needle and the bottari, the starting point and the core idea for your work. The atmosphere of the Korean art academy in the 1980s was rather insular, standardized and male-centered. What was it that led you to your current practice? Please tell us about what the circumstances were like when you first started out as a young artist.

Kimsooja
From the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, I attended Hongik University and its graduate school. At that time, professors associated with the Dansaekhwa movement had strong influences at the university, which meant I was also influenced by them. On the other hand, I had been experimenting in more avant-garde work since the late 1970s, making performative photographs through my body. I was very active in presenting alternative perspectives on certain issues, asking questions, and occasionally raising issues at the university, which in part influenced my work and the work of my peers.

At the time, I was also attempting to interpret my concerns and questions about the world, as well as my interest in the structure of the two-dimensional plane, through all aspects of my life. At the same time, I experimented with a variety of materials, wondering how I could express myself in my own language, a language that had never been used in art history before. But I could not find a sense of unity between my will and the medium or methodology. One day, while sewing a bed cover with my mother, I had a breakthrough encounter with the needle and thread.

As I have mentioned in other interviews, the moment the needle finally reached the soft fabric, I truly felt a shiver as if the energies of the entire universe were hitting me over the head and riding my fingertips to the very end of that fabric and needle. That moment when the needle and the sky met was exactly the starting point for confronting all the structural issues, including vertical and horizontal, that I had been struggling with for so long. Then I said, "Oh, this is it!" I had an epiphany and started doing needlework. In doing the needlework, I very impulsively and spontaneously went to the process of wrapping objects, or bottari, which in fact developed intuitively. I was not thinking of a concept or anticipating a result, but was driven by an energy that said, "I have to do it," and I immersed myself in bottari intuitively.

For example, there is a ring-shaped work entitled "Untitled" (1991). I used bent, square frames that form the circles as a canvas. The interconnection of the canvases created a ring, which became a structure that sewed or wrapped the space. This developed into the bottari.

In fact, the idea of using bottari did not come from the wrapping I was already doing in my work. But rather, one day I saw some bottari lying around that inspired me. As I continued to work with bottari, I realized that my continued expression of wrapping was, in a sense, the same in nature as bottari, which is wrapping with fabric. That is, I came to the realization that the act of wrapping objects with fabric is, after all, the same as needlework. Since needlework is the act of wrapping a flat surface that is fabric, I thought that it could also be applied to wrapping objects.

In other words, everything began as a combination of the specific energy of the time and my personal experience, but at the same time I realized that there was a definite structural logic that had been transformed to make it all happen. All of this has made the core of my practice and become the source of my work, and I believe that works such as the "To Breathe" series came to take place.

Soyeon Ahn
─ In fact, there was a major change of direction in the history of Korean art through the 1970s to the 1980s. Unlike today, where diversity is the order of the day, there was a major trend toward Dansaekhwa, a modernist form in Korea at the time, but it was supplanted by popular art in the 1980s. It was a time when even the major currents in art were overshadowed by other currents, and it was almost impossible to try something different. In your case, I think you have consistently been concerned about and rebelled against the limitations of modernism and found a breakthrough, but you were not swallowed up by the great patriarchal current of popular art. Popular art played a role in reflecting the spirit of the times, but it also failed to offer any alternatives for the art world. You, on the other hand, have sympathized with the spirit of the new era, such as the currents of feminism and nomadism, while incorporating them into artistic forms you have been developing for a long time. I think that is why you have followed a very meaningful path as an artist.

Kimsooja
I am very resistant not only to popular art, but also to collective flows and actions, which does not suit my temperament. In fact, I collaborated with some of the core members of the popular art movement when I was in college, right at the beginning of the movement. In the end, however, I chose to work alone. When I was at university, I was of course influenced by Dansaekhwa and the male-centered atmosphere, but I think that my experience with the Korean avant-garde movement and my continued interest in experimental art, as well as my participation in activities such as independent exhibitions, made this decision possible. And I was able to keep myself from the Dansaekhwa professors and artists to bring in younger artists to follow their path, because I could not see Dansaekhwa itself as a global and universal expression. I valued the experimental and avant-garde attitude in art. That being said, it is true that the two axes of Dansaekhwa and popular art have had a real influence on the Korean art world. So, I had no choice but to follow my own, solitary path.

Soyeon Ahn
─ So the monotonous atmosphere of the art world brought a sense of rebellion out of you as an artist, which led to an opportunity to seek your own path. You said that you did not come up with the idea of using bottari from the act of wrapping, but rather got inspired by "seeing" what was already there. Perhaps that is why you always give the title Deductive Object to your bottari and related artworks. Could you elaborate on why you gave them that title?

Kimsooja
Actually, I first used the title Deductive Object in the early 1990s in the process of creating the wrapping series. At the time, I was interested in discovering cross structures in things like farm tools, everyday objects, and at my home, and the wrapping process was a reaffirmation of those structures. I used this title, Deductive Object, in the way of reaffirming, rather than transforming, structures, and returning them to their original form again.

There are many bottari in my studio. But it was the moment when I happened to look down in my MoMA PS1 studio and saw a red bottari, that I began recognizing them as avant-garde objects. There had been many of them around me before that, but I guess I had not been able to recognize them that way. The bottari was a one I had wrapped to carry something, but at that moment I discovered its surprising meaning and formal elements.

Soyeon Ahn
─ I think that the bottari have a meaning in themselves as finished objects, but they also have the quality of expanding the surface of contact with the audience through the act of bundling and unfolding them. You have also done several performances in which the audience can participate, but each one has a different aspect. At the first Gwangju Biennial in 1995, the scattered bottari and clothes on the hill, dedicated to the victims of the Gwangju Uprising, left such a powerful impression on me that I am still emotionally moved to this day. On the other hand, at the Setagaya Art Museum, and other museums overseas, a more fun image is highlighted, such as the coffee tables wrapped in large bedding cover fabrics. In "MMCA Hyundai Motor Series 2016: KimSooja-Archive of Mind" (Seoul), the audience was encouraged to actively participate in the exhibition further more, where some parts of artworks were made by the audience. I am curious to know what the audience means to you.

Kimsooja
Before I answer your question, let me first explain about the bedding covers I used for the particular bottari. The bedding covers used for the coffee tables at the Setagaya Art Museum are commonly used by newlyweds in Korea, and I used mainly discarded ones. Speaking of which, the bedding covers are made of eye-catching, bright colors, and the complementary color contrasts make the colors stand out even more from each other, creating a spectacle of color. The covers also contain Chinese characters and numbers symbolizing things like longevity, love, happiness, wealth, and fertility, as well as symbols of the happiness we experience in life, such as flowers, butterflies, deer, and lucky purses. This is a heartfelt gift typically from the bride’s mother, but in reality life does not always work out like that. It can be a bundle of regrets instead. Life is not always beautiful, glamorous, and happy, so even though the bottari cloth is glamorous on the outside, it has its own contradictions. In fact, the bedding covers on the coffee table at the Setagaya Art Museum can be seen as a presentation of the contradictory reality of life.

At the same time, I presented on the same single plane some things that are forbidden together – like eating in a bedroom – as a painting. I developed the concept of invisible wrapping, by associating people's activities of meeting, eating, and interacting with each other in a rectangular space as if it were visible. I thought of the bottari as frames for life. The wrapping and unfolding of bottari is akin to how our lives fold and unfold.

That is why the audience accepted the happenings around the bedding covers at the Setagaya Art Museum, and at the Gwangju Biennale walked around old clothes and bottari that were tied and untied while listening to John Lennon’s “Imagine.”

I embrace the participation of the audience, and watch their actions through a third person’s eye. That is also another way of looking at my work, if you like. Although I did not photograph the audiences in these artworks for the sake of protecting their image rights, I saw all the actions of the people in the space, and their lives, as an unpredictable performance. Perhaps it was these considerations that further enabled audience-participatory works such as Archive of Mind (2016/17/19/20).

The “meridian”: the rebirth of bottari


Soyeon Ahn
Today, we have been moving back and forth in your timeline, deepening our understanding of the concepts of these important works, but I would like to conclude our conversation by returning to the present and discussing a recent exhibition. In February of this year, we heard that you had a solo exhibition called "Meridian" in a very special space in the Puerto Escondido region of Mexico. And I understand that it was the venue’s inaugural exhibition. In addition to introducing the space, could you talk about the exhibition concept and how you responded to that space?

Kimsooja
Actually, the name of the exhibition space, "Meridiano," means the "meridian" in Spanish. The space is very minimalistic, bright and clear, and beautiful, but the verticality and circularity of this "meridian" proposition itself was very inspiring to me. I was very intrigued, but I needed to consider how to interpret and present it.

At the time, I did not have time to see the venue in person. I had to be very careful in making decisions and presenting something under such circumstances. I made a choice not to put out any ideas until I actually went to the site. Instead, I discussed it with Boris Vervoordt of Axel Vervoordt Gallery, and we agreed to "take a risk" and visit the site for 10 days to think about it. If I came up with some ideas, I would suggest artworks, and if not, we would come up with a plan on-site.

During the ten days, I listened to the sound of the waves, had walks, looked at the trees bathed in the scorching Mexican sun, and the sky at night. In experiencing all this, I found in this minimal space the lines drawn by the sun, the point where the sun and meets the spave, and the geometric lines of light and shadow formed in a constant state of change.

I wanted to be alone in the empty space before the exhibition began, as if I were performing a ritual. I wanted to manifest the geometry of the meridian line by manifesting my own vertical presence in response to the changing angles of light at the point where the sun meets the earth. This became a series of photographed performances. In other words, it was my own personal ritual of encountering a space.

The only thing I did after that was to paint a rock I found in the area black, and placing it at the entrance of the space. I wrapped the rock, an object of maximum temporality and materiality, by painting it black.

This could be considered the second painting in "Deductive Object," after the one using five colors presented at "MMCA Hyundai Motor Series 2016: KimSooja-Archive of Mind" exhibition (2016) we mentioned. This was the first time I was able to combine wrapping and painting, and I think it was the first time I returned to painting. Also, by wrapping the rocks in black, the bottari was reborn.

On the other hand, I was very worried about what to show inside the gallery space, but when I fell asleep after much agony, I had a dream in which fire appeared by chance. This led me to visualize elements of fire in contrast to rock, namely ephemerality, vaporization, and the geometry of vertical annihilation, through the expression of creating a fire in the space.

The process of creating fire was also interesting. First, you lay down a vector structure, cover it with sand, then ground it flat again, before stacking more wood on top of it, as if building a pyramid. The smoke from the fire was then sent up into the sky, and light entered through the open ceiling, creating a geometry of light and smoke where the light meets the end of the ceiling. It became a performance in which everything eventually returned to nothing, as the work formed and then disappeared, with myself also disappearing at the end.

The meridian, the great circle that connects through the celestial poles that is perpendicular to the Equator, is a line that never ceases to exist. Through the meridian, I was able to express the geometric and cosmic relationship between the earth, the human body, and the sun. The verticality of such a meridian is represented instead by our bodies. In a way, this is also in continuum with the "cosmic egg," a Deductive Object inspired by the black Brahmananda stones. Such sequence of events was an interesting experience for me, as if bottari was reborn.

Soyeon Ahn
In the space embedded with the concept of meridian, you have so succinctly and clearly embodied the encounter between time and space; light and shadow; fire and air; and nature and humans. The performances that unfolded in this space, A Needle Woman and Deductive Object, seem to encompass the core of your art. I look forward to continue witnessing your practice that expand and inspire the viewer's thinking.