Kimsooja (Born 1957, Taegu, Korea). Kimsooja is a multi-disciplinary conceptual artist who travels between her three homes and places of work in New York City, Paris, and Seoul. In 1980 Kim graduated with a B.F.A in Painting from Hong-Ik University, Seoul and continued her M.F.A. there, obtaining the degree in 1984 at 27 old.
is one of the most recognized Korean artists in the international art scene. She currently lives and works in New York, Paris and Seoul. Her work has been extensively exhibited in Asia, the USA and Europe and developed through installations, photography, performances and videos. The artist explores themes such as Nomadism, the relationship between self and others, the roles of women in the world and the importance of human beings in today's chaotic world, their loneliness and transience.
During the Nineties, Kimsooja created special objects and installations and used sewing as a metaphor and an activity in itself. The materials used and how she arranges them originate from the uses of fabrics in Korean tradition; for instance, “Bottari”, bundles of old clothing made with traditional Korean bed covers. Also At the end of the Nineties Kimsooja released a series of video performance pieces produced in different places around the world, with the common denominator being the stationary feminine figure. Fabrics, especially bed covers, light sequences, sound, the chants of Tibetan, Gregorian and Islamic monks and her breathing are just some of the resources she employs and has come to identify her work. Her pieces appear shrouded in silence, works that aspire to isolation, devotion and the use of exhibition space as a sanctuary.
Kimsooja has exhibited his work at the Kunsthalle Vienna, the MoMA in New York and the Palacio de Cristal in El Retiro in the exhibition organized by the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, among many other museums and art centres.
