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To Breathe – AlUla

To Breathe – AlUla

In the Presence of Absence, Desert X AlUla 2024, Alula, Saudi Arabia
9 Feb 2024 to 23 March 2024
For more information click HERE.

2024

Photo by Lance Gerber

Site-specific Installation with Diffraction Grating Films
Courtesy The Royal Commission for AlUla and Kimsooja Studio

Kimsooja - (Un)folding Bottari, Humboldt Forum, Berlin, Germany

Kimsooja - (Un)folding Bottari, Humboldt Forum, Berlin, Germany

25 October 2023 to 19 February 2024
For more information click HERE.


Guest curator: Keumhwa Kim
Curators of the museum: Kerstin Pinther, Uta Rahman-Steinert

2023

Photo by Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für
Asiatische Kunst / Pierre Adenis

(Left to Right:)
01 - 02 Bottari 1999-2019, 2019, Shipping Container Painted the Colors of Obangsaek, Containing All of the Artist's Personal Possessions from Her New York Apartment, 20ft high cubic container, 290 x 606 x 244 cm
03 Deductive Object, 2016, Plaster Casting of Artist's Arms and Antique Wooden Table, Unique
04 - 06 Deductive Object - Bottari, 2023, Bisque porcelain, Unique
07 Sewing into Soil: Invisible Needle, Invisible Thread, 2023, Bisque porcelain, Unique
08 - 09 Bottari Installation, 2017, Used Korean Bedcovers, Used Clothing, Variable, Unique
09 (Video) Sewing Into Walking - Kyungju, 1994, DVD, Single Channel Video, 19:40 loop, Silent
10 Deductive Object, 2007, 19th C. Baguette Cart from France, 8 bottaris - Used Bed Clothes and Bungee Cords / Deductive Object, 2007, 9th C. Baguette Cart from France, 6 Bottaris - Used Bed Clothes and Bungee Cords / Deductive Object, 2007, Used Cloth, Wrapping Cloth
11 Thread Routes - Chapter I, 2010, Bluray disc, Single Channel Video, 24:52 loop, Sound, HD / Thread Routes - Chapter II, 2011, Bluray disc, Single Channel Video, 23:50 loop, Sound, HD / Thread Routes - Chapter IV, 2014, DVD, Single Channel Video, 27:48 loop, Sound, HD
12 To Breathe: Mandala, 2010, Single Jukebox with the Artist’s Voice Performance “The Weaving Factory”(2004), loop / Mandala: Zone of Zero, 2004-2010, Single channel mixed media sound installation (One Jukebox, Three Chants Mixed with Tibetan, Gregorian, and Islamic), 9:50, loop

Kimsooja: Wrapping the Void, Sèvres National Manufactory and Museum, Sèvres, France

Kimsooja: Wrapping the Void, Sèvres National Manufactory and Museum, Sèvres, France

9 October - 5 November 2023
For more information click HERE.

2023

Photo by Jaeho Chong

(Left to Right:)

Kimsooja, Meta-Painting, Kewenig Galerie, Berlin, Germany

Kimsooja, Meta-Painting, Kewenig Galerie, Berlin, Germany

8 September - 4 November 2023
For more information click HERE.

2023

Photo by Lepkowski Studios, Berlin

(Left to Right:)
01 - 03 Meta-Painting, 2020, Linen Canvases Stretched on Wooden Frame and Bottari Made of Linen Canvases, Used Local Clothes, 200 x 324 cm
04 To Breathe - Kewenig, 2023, Site-specific Installation with diffraction grating film, Variable
05 - 07 Deductive Object: (Un)fold, 2023, Korean Rice Paper, 104.5 x 73 x 6 cm
08 - 09 To Breathe - Kewenig, 2023, Site-specific Installation with diffraction grating film, Variable

To Breathe

To Breathe

Kimsooja's site-specific installation with diffraction grating film, To Breathe is integrated into the Mairie de Saint-Ouen station's exchange hall(Paris Métro - line 13&14). To Breathe is an immersive installation, using the principle of light diffraction to create a sensory and poetic atmosphere designed to resonate with travelers of all ages. On the glass walls that surround the void of the exchange room overlooking the metro tracks, the rays of light break down into multiple spectrums of color, acting as a three-dimensional painting that redefines the space. Each moment within this installation promises a distinct encounter.
For more information click HERE.

2023

Photo by Pierre Charlier

To Breathe, 2023
Site specific installation with diffraction grating film
Size variable
Permanent installation view at Marie de Saint-Ouen station, Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine, France
Courtesy of Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens(RATP) and Kimsooja Studio.

To Breathe - Venice

To Breathe - Venice

Installation view at Group Exhibition Icônes, Punta della Dogana, Venice, Italy
2 April 2023 - 26 November 2026
For more information about the exhibition, please click HERE.

2023

01 - 02 Photo by Marco Cappelletti e Filippo Rossi
03 - 04 Photo by Kimsooja


© Kimsooja
Palazzo Grassi, Pinault Collection

To Breathe - Venice, 2023, Site specific installation consisting of diffraction grating film and mirror panel.
Courtesy of Punta della Dogana and Kimsooja Studio. Photo by © Palazzo Grassi, Pinault Collection

To Breathe, Galeries Lafayette, Paris

To Breathe, Galeries Lafayette, Paris

On Galeries Lafayette’s invitation, Kimsooja illuminates the department store’s magnificent architecture with her light-oriented installation To Breathe. By covering the iconic glass dome in Galeries Lafayette’s Paris Haussmann store with diffraction grating film, Kimsooja transforms the dome’s external surfaces and internal spaces into iridescent landscapes that shift and change throughout the day. For this site-specific installation (the first in Paris on this scale), Kimsooja explores the building’s sensory and meditative qualities by focusing visitors’ attention on light to create an environment conducive to contemplation. Space in between double dome on the 5th floor is exceptionally opened to the public for the installation.
For more information click HERE.

Galeries Lafayette, Paris, France

2023

(Left to right)
01-05 Kimsooja, To Breathe, 2023
Diffraction grating film installation, size variable
Installation view at Galeries Lafayette Haussmann, Paris, 2023.
Courtesy of the Galeries Lafayette Group and Kimsooja Studio. Photo by Jaeho Chong

Weaving the Light, Cisternerne, Frederiksberg Museum, Copenhagen

Weaving the Light, Cisternerne, Frederiksberg Museum, Copenhagen

In 2023, Kimsooja captures the underground space of Cisternerne. The audience is invited into an etheral space where light, projected into iridescent color spectra, transforms the former water reservoir into a sacred sea of light. Every year, the Frederiksberg Museums invites an artist to create a site-specific work for the 4,400 square meters of Cisternerne, into which the daylight never reaches, the humidity is close to 100%, the reverberation is of 17 seconds, and the temperature fluctuates between 4 and 16 degrees Celsius. In an extensive installation of light and color, Kimsooja transforms Cisternerne into an ephemeral universe, where the light radiates like brushstrokes on transparent canvases and breaks the darkness. The work is comprised of diffraction grating film that is mounted on transparent panels, which altogether let light pass through a microscopic surface of horizontal and vertical prisms. Rays of light split into vibrant colors that dynamically weave in and out of the subterranean colonnades.
For more information click HERE.

Cisternerne, Frederiksberg Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark

2023

Installation view of Weaving the Light, 2023, site-specific installation consisting of 48 diffraction panels, Cisternerne, Frederiksberg Museum, Denmark.
Courtesy of Frederiksberg Museum and Kimsooja Studio. Photo by Torben Eskerod

Topography of Body, Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Hong Kong

Topography of Body, Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Hong Kong

Topography of Body is Kimsooja’s first solo exhibition after several presentations in the city. The exhibition features a selection of work that demonstrates her vast multidisciplinary practice including the video performance, Thread Routes: Chapter III, a series of indigo Indian block prints, new clay and rice paper works, and two prints of Geometry of Body.
For more information, click HERE

Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Hong Kong

2023

(Left to right)
01 Kimsooja, Thread Routes Chapter III - Deductive Object, 2012-2015
block printing table covers, dimension variable
Courtesy Axel Vervoordt Gallery and Kimsooja Studio, Photo by Kit Min
02 Kimsooja, Thread Routes - Chapter III, 2012
16 mm film transferred to HD format, sound, 17:35
Courtesy Axel Vervoordt Gallery and Kimsooja Studio, Photo by Kit Min
03 Left: Kimsooja, Geometry of Body, 2013/ 2015
Giclée (Inkjet) print on hot press paper, 168 x 112 x 5 cm
Right: Kimsooja, Geometry of Mind, 2023
Clay balls, Diameter 40 cm
04 Right: Kimsooja, Deductive Object: (Un)fold, 2023
Korean rice paper, 105 x 74 x 6 cm
Left: Kimsooja, Meta-Painting, 2022
250 sheets of Korean rice paper, 93.5 x 61.5 x 3 cm
05 Kimsooja, Meta-Painting(detail), 2022
250 sheets of Korean rice paper, 93.5 x 61.5 x 3 cm

Deductive Object: (Un)fold, Paper Tube Studio, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz

Deductive Object: (Un)fold, Paper Tube Studio, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz

The workshop Kimsooja conceived for Paper Tube Studio originates in her previous body of work, notably the Bottari. It is a “life sculpture”. This surface is used to wrap, or internalize the memory of self and others through the act of making a single knot. It is a work that is at once a painting, a sculpture, and action. In this context, Deductive Object: (Un)fold offers visitors to participate in making a painting that transforms through the physical and emotional dimensions impressed onto the tactile surface of rice paper in the palms of their hands.

Paper Tube Studio, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, France

2023

(Left to right)
01 Kimsooja, Deductive Object: (Un)fold, 2023
Installation view at Paper Tube Studio, Centre Pompidou-Metz.
The workshop was conceived and realized by Kimsooja at the invitation of the Centre Pompidou-Metz.
Production Centre Pompidou-Metz and Kimsooja, Photo by Jaeho Chong

02-03 Kimsooja, Deductive Object: (Un)fold, 2023
Installation view at Paper Tube Studio, Centre Pompidou-Metz.
The workshop was conceived and realized by Kimsooja at the invitation of the Centre Pompidou-Metz.
Production Centre Pompidou-Metz and Kimsooja, Photo by Marc Domage

04 Deductive Object: (Un)fold, 2023. Workshop image

Jaeoseon, Meridiano, Puerto Escondido

Jaeoseon, Meridiano, Puerto Escondido

As the first artist to exhibit at Meridiano, Kimsooja is conscious of the gallery’s name, which originates from meridian — a circular line connecting the north and south poles of the earth at the shortest vertical distance — as well as the exhibition space’s architectural elements, which are exposed to the intense direct sunlight along Oaxaca’s Pacific Coast. Jaoseon’s initiates a performance that places the verticality of the body at the moment when the light is transformed into a geometric structure within the gallery.
For more information, click HERE.

Meridiano, Puerto Escondido, Mexico

2023

(Left to right)
01 Kimsooja, Geometry of Fire, 2023
Site-specific installation for Jaoseon at Meridiano, Puerto Escondido, Mexico
Courtesy of Meridiano and Kimsooja Studio, Photo by Sergio López
02-03 Kimsooja, Deductive Object – Bottari, 2023
stone, matte black water-based paint, 128 x 176 x 117(LxWxH)cm
production location: Meridiano, Puerto Escondido, Mexico
Courtesy of Meridiano and Kimsooja Studio, Photo by Sergio López
04-06 Kimsooja, A Needle Woman, 2023, Performance.
Courtesy of Meridiano and Kimsooja Studio, Photo by Sergio López

To Breathe–Zurich, Galerie Tschudi, Zurich

To Breathe–Zurich, Galerie Tschudi, Zurich

Galerie Tschudi, Zurich, Switzerland

2023

Kimsooja, To Breathe - Zurich, 2023. site specific installation consisting of diffraction grating film and mirror floor panels, size variable. Courtesy of Galerie Tschudi, Zurich, Kimsooja Studio. Photo by Max Ehrengruber

Meta-Painting, 2019-2023

Meta-Painting, 2019-2023

Nanopolymer Glass, Black Lead Paint, Lead
each 17.5 x 17.5 x 0.5 cm

2023

Archive of Mind, AGNSW, Sydney, Australia

Archive of Mind, AGNSW, Sydney, Australia

Making Worlds, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
For more information, click HERE


In occasion of Sydney Modern Project's inauguration, Archive of Mind is now on view at Art Gallery of New South Wales in Australia. With the artwork, Kimsooja invites visitors to collect a handful of clay, sit at the large work surface, and empty their minds of distraction; to sink into the experience of forming a ball of clay between the hands, rolling and wrapping it into itself like an infinite Bottari. The process transforms simple, everyday actions into moments of meditation and transcendence. As each sphere is completed, it is added to the table, forming an organic arrangement that holds the imprint of each maker. Archive of mind is accompanied by Unfolding Sphere, a subtle soundscape composed of two sounds: the artist gurgling water and clay balls being pressed, rolled and colliding with one another. At some moments it recalls a distant thunderstorm, at others, a burbling stream.


This presentation of Archive of Mind is supported by a grant from the Australia-Korea Foundation, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Purchase with funds provided by the Art Gallery of New South Wales Foundation 2018

2022

Photo by Jaeho Chong
Image Copyright AGNSW, Christopher Snee

Archive of mind
Participatory Installation with Clay Ball, Wooden Table and Stools, Sound Performance Unfolding Sphere(2016), 16 Channel 15:35, loop
Courtesy of Kimsooja Studio

To Breathe - Leiden

To Breathe - Leiden

Consisting of semicircular arches stretched over the canal that get lit delicately in the evening, To Breathe – Leiden symbolically attests to the connection between art and science that is Leiden’s core character. Furthermore, the series of arches across the canal is a metaphor for Kimsooja’s key motif of sewing and weaving, which also historically grounds the city’s textile tradition.
The Lucas Art Award was presented by the Lucas van Leyden Fund, responsible for bringing contemporary art in the city. The work was executed by Anything is Possible and supported by Axel Vervoordt Gallery and it is on view for 3 years, until 2025.

2022

Photo by Jaeho Chong

To Breathe - Leiden
Public Art Commission for Lucas Art Award, Oude Vest, Leiden, The Netherlands
Courtesy of Axel Vervoordt Gallery and Kimsooja studio

To Breathe

To Breathe

The Cathédrale Saint-Étienne in Metz features new stained glass windows, created by Kimsooja. They are installed in the bays of the triforium in the south arm of the transept. The artist offers an abstract work designed to be a gentle experience, centred on colour and the changing light throughout the day and the seasons. The stained glass panes were created in collaboration with the French master glass maker, Pierre-Alain Parot, using a combination of blown glass and dichroic glass.
This public art commission of a permanent piece was initiated by the Ministry of Culture, France. The project, overseen by the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs of the Grand Est region, in close liaison and with constant collaboration with the clergy responsible for the cathedral, was designed as a highlight of the celebrations of the eighth centenary of this Gothic structure.

2022

01 - 03 Photo by Jaeho Chong
04 Photo bt Kimsooja

To Breathe, Metz Cathedral
Public Art Commission for Permanent Stained Glass Installation, Metz, France


Commissioned on the occasion of the 800th anniversary of the Cathédrale Saint-Étienne de Metz
Commissioned by Ministry of Culture, France
Courtesy of Axel Vervoordt Gallery and Kimsooja Studio

To Breathe - Leeum

To Breathe - Leeum

To Breathe (2021) is a site-specific artwork installed in the museum’s rotunda, where diffraction grating film is used to refract sunlight that enters the circular space through its dome-shaped skylight, illuminating a series of window frames that enclose its central cavity. The diffraction grating film allows natural light to constantly transform in tune with the flow of time, changes in weather and movements of the sun throughout the four seasons, enveloping the interior spiral staircase and surrounding walls in prismatic light before reaching ground level, where it casts a circular splash of color. Breathing within the main axis of the museum that connects its four floors of galleries, this light converts the space into a sanctum. Another type of special reflective film that responds to soft light is installed to interact with the rhythm of the window frames along the spiral staircase. This reflective film yields rainbow spectrums and generates unique compositions according to viewers’ movements, resonating with Kimsooja’s ongoing investigation of painting and two-dimensionality. As light passes through the diffraction grating film, which is covered in nano-sized scratches that act as a prism, the interior space is filled with iridescent rays. Such refraction and breathing of the light awaken the audience’s sentiments and thoughts, allowing for both a metaphorical and embodied experience of the artist’s nonmaterial practice of “non-doing, non-making” with light painting. Transposed into light in To Breathe, Kimsooja’s artistic language transcends notions of materiality and delivers the breath of nature unto all beings within its embrace, from the moment the very first life took its first breath until the present, in the same way that light has always unconditionally sheltered and touched countless beings.

2021

Commissioned by Leeum
Photo by Seungbeom Hur

To Breathe, 2021, Site-specific Installation with Diffraction Grating Film
Installed on the Ceiling of the Iconic Rotunda of the Remodeled Leeum, Seoul, Korea
Courtesy of Leeum Museum of Art and Kimsooja Studio

BienalSUR, Buenos Aires

BienalSUR, Buenos Aires

For more information, click HERE

Based in Seoul, Paris and New York, international conceptual artist Kimsooja (b. 1957) has for the past four decades oriented her practice in alignment with the totality of art and life. Kimsooja participates in BIENAL SUR 2021, an artistic endeavor that seeks to break down cultural barriers and connect the world in the pandemic era, through an exhibition titled KIMSOOJA BUENOS AIRES. Chapter 1: Kimsooja. The Encounter with the Other (2021.09.10-12.23), KIMSOOJA BUENOS AIRES. Chapter 2: Kimsooja. Nomad (2021.09.15-11.21) and Chapter 3 at Korean Cultural Center (CCC). This solo presentation comprises 26 works of video and film, including A Needle Woman, as well as large-scale installations, objects and photographs displayed from September 2 to December 15 in major museums and theaters across Buenos Aires as well as the Korean Cultural Center. The third edition of BIENAL SUR proposes a culturally open topography of art that respects the diversity of different cultures and addresses ecological awareness, ways of living, art politics and issues of transit and migration. Such themes resonate with Kimsooja’s longstanding artistic contemplation of the world’s order, cycles and borders and reflects her efforts to transcend various media with a consistent emphasis on compassion and humanity.

Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina and host city of BIENAL SUR, is a multicultural metropolis that has embraced immigrant populations from Europe, Africa and Asia throughout significant historical incidents including Spanish colonization, World Wars I and II and the Algerian War. Kimsooja installs several works around the city’s harbor, a place where immigrants to Buenos Aires first came ashore, revealing a new symbolic significance as they transpose the meaning of migration from the artist’s personal realm into one of universal empathy. Bottari Truck – Migrateures (2008) symbolically portrays the journey of an immigrant in Paris by wrapping and unwrapping a bottari (bundle) before departing; the concept of movement associated with bottari is visualized in the form of a container in recent works Bottari: 1999-2019 and its extended five-color (Obangsaek) container Bottari:2021; and a documentary film series, Thread Routes (2010-2019), poetically considers the universality of human culture as it merges natural landscapes with traditional textile cultures around the world. Kimsooja’s works actively engage with spaces that symbolize the city’s diversity and history of immigration, opening new possibilities for individuals of different backgrounds to coexist.

The National University of Tres de Febero’s Museum of Immigration (MUNTREF), which was built to commemorate the arrivals of immigrants from Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America in the late 19th century, features Bottari:2021 on its façade, while A Needle Woman (2005) appears inside. Archive of Mind, a participatory installation of dry clay balls set on a large elliptical table, invites audiences to join in a contemplative communal performance by holding the clay balls in their hands and rolling them across the table while listening to the sound of Kimsooja's murmuring voice in Unfolding Spheres (2016). As both discrete individuals and a collective community, the audience shares the materiality of the clay as well as the inner aesthetic journey of clearing one’s mind. The group of uniquely shaped clay balls are produced as the axes of encounters among numerous sets of intersecting hands and signify the meetings of all beings scattered throughout the cosmos, who coexist through connected relations. In To Breathe (2021), installed at the crosswalk that traverses the museum building from east and to west, one can metaphorically yet viscerally experience the artist’s dematerialized artworld of “non-doing, non-making” light painting, where visitors’ breath and refractions of light are transformed through diffraction grating film that illuminates the space with a rainbow light spectrum.

New works presented at MUNTREF are also noteworthy, including new iterations of the artist’s representative bottari, which represent the movements and border crossings that envelop the world’s diversity, as well as To Breathe: the flags(2012), whereby local residents’ old clothes are wrapped in colorful fabrics of Obangsaek tones that are commonly found in everyday Argentine life and made into minimal bottari, thus connecting with and embracing multiple social contexts. Thread Routes (2010-2019) further conveys Kimsooja's perspective toward the links that connect global textile cultures, architecture, nature and handcrafts, allowing viewers to experience the visual connections between dyeing, embroidery, weaving, lacework, tile and pottery practices.

The artist's Deductive Object series installed at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes suggests a new aesthetics of the readymade by loading carts with bottari made out of laundry bags, supplemented by A Needle Woman [Paris, 2009] and lightbox photos of the bottari series. Installed in the mirror room of the Museo Nacional de Arte Decorativo is To Breathe, a large mirror installation on the floor is paired with sound from The Weaving Factory (2004); the Korean Cultural Center presents Deductive Object, an Obangsaek carpet work, and Mandala: Zone of Zero; and the historical Margarita Xirgu Theatre screens To Breathe - Invisible Mirror, Invisible Needle (2005). By encountering Kimsooja’s works at culturally significant locations throughout Buenos Aires, audiences are encouraged to reflect on issues of migration and transit in the age of globalization, thereby constructing a visual platform of harmony and solidarity. This project marks the artist’s first large-scale exhibition in Latin America since 1997, when she participated in the Bienal de São Paulo with Cities on the Move - 11163 miles Bottari Truck.

New York apartment, installation view at MUNTREF, Buenoes Aires, Argentina

2021

(Left to right:)
01 : Kimsooja, Bottari: 1999-2019, 2021, Site-specific installation consisting of shipping container painted the colors of obangsaek, containing all of the artist's personal possessions from her New York apartment, installation view at MUNTREF, Buenoes Aires, Argentina, Courtesy of the Bienal SUR 2021 and Kimsooja Studio

To Breathe - Suzu, The 2nd Oku-Noto Triennale, Suzu, Japan

To Breathe - Suzu, The 2nd Oku-Noto Triennale, Suzu, Japan

Oku-Noto Triennale: To Breathe - Suzu, Wanzaki Coast, Suzu, Japan
25 February - 13 June 2021


Kimsooja (b. 1957), a conceptual artist based in New York, Paris and Seoul, participates in the 2nd Oku-Noto Triennale with a presentation of two site-specific installations that convey the immaterial totality of life and art. Located at the northern tip of Japan’s Ishikawa Prefecture and surrounded by the sea on three sides, Suzu City was once a prosperous hub of maritime trade; in recent generations, however, it has become a dwindling town whose residents have largely resettled in other regions. By hosting the Oku-Noto Triennale, an art festival that unites local culture and contemporary art, the city seeks to revitalize its local communities and the region as a whole. To that end, Kimsooja’s site-specific works are installed in carefully chosen locations – a field located at the foot of a mountain on the Wanisaki coast and an old abandoned house – in order to form intimate associations with the city’s history and geography.


To Breathe: Mirror (2021) consists of a series of mirror panels installed along the oceanfront that reflect the horizon against a mountainous backdrop. Throughout Kimsooja’s oeuvre, mirrors function as a medium for prolonged questioning and investigation of the conditions of painting, as well as an extension of her “needle” concept in which she seeks to patch up divisions of our times and recover the innate value of human beings. Newly presented at the Oku-Noto Triennale, To Breathe: Mirror resonates and breathes with the natural landscape of the Wanisaki coast. The work integrates both water and earth, reflecting the Other in order to negate the sea’s capacity to demarcate territorial borders according to the modern concept of nations and propose a message of mending and embracing both physical and psychological ruptures.


To Breathe: Suzu (2021) introduces diffraction grating film to the windows of an abandoned house. Nano-sized scratches covering this thin film operate as prisms that filter natural light by refracting the sun's rays to produce small, fantastic rainbow spectrums. Unveiling a new light painting as a spatial intervention within a deserted house that has ceased to serve as a site of shelter and storage for local fishermen, this work constitutes a sincere endeavor to breathe regeneration and healing into the space. Viewers who experience the light painting on the house’s interior, or look through its windows to behold the iridescent trajectories of visible light outside, will feel a profound sense of connection by witnessing the water, forest and sky of this coastal landscape merge into a single artwork. In the spirit of supporting artistic collaboration even during a global pandemic, the 2ndOku-Noto Triennale runs from September 4 to November 6th, 2021.

2021

Commissioned by Oku Noto Triennale
Photo by Kichirō Okamura

(Left to right:)
01 - 03 To Breathe - Suzu, 2021, Site-specific Installation with Diffraction Grating Film, Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale and Kimsooja Studio
04 - 05 To Breathe - Suzu, 2021, Site-specific Installation Consisting of Stainless Steel Mirror Panels, Iron Structures, Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale and Kimsooja Studio

Kimsooja - Sowing Into Painting, The Wanås Art Foundation, Wanås, Sweden

Kimsooja - Sowing Into Painting, The Wanås Art Foundation, Wanås, Sweden

For more information, click HERE


The Wanås Foundation presents Sowing Into Painting a multidimensional project including site-specific installations, film, sculpture, and painting. Wana?s Konst is a unique cultural foundation in Southern Sweden, composed of a sculpture park and art galleries on the site of a medieval castle and an organic farm. Kimsooja’s exhibition incorporates the diversity of the location in newly-conceived works investigating the conceptual relationship between painting, agriculture and textiles.

2020

Photo by Mattias Givell

(Left to right:)
01 - 03: Kimsooja, Sowing into Painting, 2020. Sowing, Work in progress with two planted varieties of flax seeds (for flax seeds oil and linen) in Wanås Konst open fields. Courtesy of Wanås Konst and Kimsooja Studio. Photo by Mattias Givell
04 - 06: Kimsooja, Sowing into Painting, 2020. Blossoming, Work in progress with two planted varieties of flax seeds (for flax seeds oil and linen) in Wanås Konst open fields. Courtesy of Wanås Konst and Kimsooja Studio. Photo by Elin Magnusson
07 - 09: Kimsooja, Sowing into Painting, 2020. From flower to fruit, Work in progress with two planted varieties of flax seeds (for flax seeds oil and linen) in Wanås Konst open fields. Courtesy of Wanås Konst and Kimsooja Studio. Photo by Martin Lang
10 - 12: Kimsooja, Sowing into Painting, 2020. Seed Capsules and harvesting, Work in progress with two planted varieties of flax seeds (for flax seeds oil and linen) in Wanås Konst open fields. Courtesy of Wanås Konst and Kimsooja Studio. Photo by Martin Lang
13 - 15: Kimsooja, Meta-Painting, 2020. Various linen canvases stretched on wooden frame and bottaris made of linen canvases, used local clothes. Canvases 200 x 324 cm each, bottari dimensions variable. Installation view at Wanås Konst Art Gallery. Courtesy of Wanås Konst and Kimsooja Studio. Photo by Mattias Givell
16 - 17: Kimsooja, A Laundry Field, 2020. Site-specific installation consisting of 100 local Swedish embroidered bedsheets. Installation view at Wanås Konst Sculpture Park, Sweden. Courtesy of Wanås Konst and Kimsooja Studio. Photo by Mattias Givell
18 : Kimsooja, Thread Routes - Chapters I, II, IV, 2010, 2011, 2014. 16mm film transferred to HD Format, 5.1 sound. Installation view at Wanås Konst. Courtesy of Wanås Konst and Kimsooja Studio. Photo by Mattias Givell
19 - 21: Kimsooja, To Breathe, 2020. Site-specific installation with mirror panels and sound performance The Weaving Factory, 2004-2013, 5.1 channel, 9:14, loop. Installation view at Wanås Konst Hay Barn. Courtesy of Wanås Konst and Kimsooja Studio. Photos by Mattias Givell.
22 - 24: Kimsooja, Deductive Objects, 1993-2020. Site-specific installation consisting of fabric filled into the existing holes of the century old hay barn wall. Installation view at Wanås Konst Hay Barn. Courtesy of the Wanås Konst and Kimsooja Studio. Photos by Mattias Givell.

Meta-Painting

Meta-Painting

Installation at Wanas Konst Art Gallery, Wanas, Sweden
For Wanås Foundation, Sowing Into Painting, Multidimensional Art Project Including Site-specific Installations
Courtesy of Wanås Konst and Kimsooja Studio

2020

Photo by Mattias Givell

Meta-Painting, 2020, Various Linen Canvases Stretched on Wooden Frame and Bottaris Made of Linen Canvases, Used Local Clothes.
Canvases 200 x 324 cm (each), Bottari, Dimensions Variable

A Laundry Field

A Laundry Field

Site Specific Installation at Wanas Konst Sculpture Park, Wanas, Sweden
For Wanås Foundation, Sowing Into Painting, Multidimensional Art Project Including Site-specific Installations
Courtesy of Wanås Konst and Kimsooja Studio

2020

Photo by Mattias Givell

A Laundry Field, Site-specific Installation Consisting of 100 Local Swedish Embroidered Bedsheets

To Breathe, Wanas Konst haybarn

To Breathe, Wanas Konst haybarn

Site-specific Installation at Wanas Konst haybarn, Wanas, Sweden
For Wanås Foundation, Sowing Into Painting, Multidimensional Art Project Including Site-specific Installations
Courtesy of Wanås Konst and Kimsooja Studio

2020

Photos by Mattias Givell

(Left to right:)
01 - 03. To Breathe, 2020, Site-specific Installation with Mirror Panels and Sound Performance The Weaving Factory(2004/2013), 9:14, loop.
04 - 06: Kimsooja, Deductive Objects, 1993/2020, Site-specific Installation Consisting of Fabric Filled into the Existing Holes of the Century Old Hay Barn Wall

Sowing Into Painting

Sowing Into Painting

Site-specific Project at Wanas Konst, Sweden
Work in Progress with Two Planted Varieties of Flax Seeds (for Flax Seeds Oil and Linen) in Wanås Konst Open Fields
Courtesy of Wanås Konst and Kimsooja Studio
For Wanås Foundation, Sowing Into Painting, Multidimensional Art Project Including Site-specific Installations

2020

(Left to right:)
01 - 03 Sowing into Painting, 2020, Sowing, Photo by Mattias Givell
04 - 06 Sowing into Painting, 2020, Blossoming, Photo by Elin Magnusson
07 - 09 Sowing into Painting, 2020, From flower to fruit, Photo by Martin Lang
10 - 12 Sowing into Painting, 2020, Seed Capsules and harvesting, Photo by Martin Lang

To Breathe - The Flags, Asia Society Museum, New York

To Breathe - The Flags, Asia Society Museum, New York

Installation at the 1st Asia Society Triennial: We Do Not Dream Alone: Art and creativity under lockdown, Asia Society Museum, New York, USA
For more information, click HERE

2020

Photo by Bruce M. White

Single Channel Video Animation, 40:41 loop, Silent, Courtesy of Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan, Italy and Kimsooja Studio

To Breathe - The Light House

To Breathe - The Light House

Site-specific Installation with Diffraction Grating Films
Courtesy of Boghossian Foundation, Axel Vervoordt Gallery and Kimsooja Studio

2020

Photo by Jan Liegeois

Installation view at To Breathe - The Light House, 2020-2021, Boghossian Foundation, Villa Empain, Brussels, Belgium

Kimsooja, Planted Names, Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium

Kimsooja, Planted Names, Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium

Installation at Kimsooja, Planted Names, Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium
Courtesy of Axel Vervoordt Gallery and Kimsooja Studio
For more information, click HERE

2020

Photo by Jan Liegeois

(Left to right)
01 - 04 Planted Names, 2002, Set of 4 Woven Carpets, Unique
05 - 06 Bottari: Alpha Beach, 2001, Single Channel Video, 6:18 loop, Silent
Bottari 2018. Used Korean Bedcovers, Used Clothes from Perth, Australia, Courtesy of Trish Clark Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand and Kimsooja Studio

Thread Routes - Chapter VI

Thread Routes - Chapter VI

Single Channel Video, 28:18, 5.1 Sound
Commissionned by the City of Poitiers

2019

To Breathe

To Breathe

Site-specific Installation with Mirrors Panels and Diffraction Grating Films, and Sound Performance The Weaving Factory(2004-2013)
Courtesy of Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Axel Vervoordt Gallery, and Kimsooja Studio

2019

01 Photo by Mark Reeves
02 - 04 Photo by Jan Liegeois

Installation at Kimsooja: To Breathe, Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Chapel, Wakefield, UK

Archive of Mind

Archive of Mind

Site-specific Participatory Consisting of Clay balls, Elliptical Wooden Table, and Sound Performance Unfolding Sphere(2016)
Courtesy of Kimsooja Studio

2019

1 - 2 Photo by Bob Packert
3 - 6 Photo by Ken Sawyer

Installation at Kimsooja: Archive of Mind, Peabody Essex Museum(PEM), Salem, USA

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