A Mirror Woman – the ground of nowher

source: networkedculturesorg

In the work of Kimsooja migration plays also an important role, and again, it has to do with her personal history, though not so much directly with political circumstances. Already as a child she lived a nomadic life in which all her possessions could be folded up or easily taken with her, a kind of life which in a way she continued later when, as an international artist, she became part of two worlds: Korea, where she came from, and the international art world. She makes sculptures, installations, and performances in which she appears, for example, as a Needle Women, Mirror Women or Beggar Women.

In the installation A Mirror Woman: The Ground of Nowhere she installed a fabric column in the opening of what had been the glass roof before. On the floor inside the column she placed a mirror. People who entered the column saw the reflection of the sky in the mirror, but a reflection which not really represent the sky, but was experienced as a rolling sea as well. There was a merger, so to say, of the sky above, and the water below. Yet this experience of alienation was also present on another level, namely that of the identity of a migrant. This installation was made for a specific occasion: the celebration of Korean immigration to the US. So this context, historical event and location, were important too, for the conceptualization of the work and its interpretation. It is my impression that this feeling of alienation in her work goes hand in hand with a feeling of reconciliation with her life as a Korean woman, and maybe also as a globetrotting artist. That makes her position quite opposed to the ones discussed before.
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source: pbsorg

Kimsooja was born in 1957 in Taegu, South Korea. She earned a BFA (1980) and MA (1984) from Hong-Ik University, Seoul. Kimsooja’s videos and installations blur the boundaries between aesthetics and transcendent experience through their use of repetitive actions, meditative practices, and serial forms. In many pieces, everyday actions—such as sewing or doing laundry—become two- and three-dimensional or performative activities. Central to her work is the “bottari,” a traditional Korean bed cover used to wrap and protect personal belongings, which Kimsooja transforms into a philosophical metaphor for structure and connection. In videos that feature her in various personas (Needle Woman, Beggar Woman, Homeless Woman), she leads us to reflect on the human condition, offering open-ended perspectives through which she presents and questions reality. Using her own body, facing away from the camera, Kimsooja becomes a void; we literally see and respond through her. While striking for their vibrant color and density of imagery, Kimsooja’s works emphasize metaphysical changes within the artist-as-performer as well as the viewer. Kimsooja has received the Anonymous Was a Woman Award (2002), among others, and has been an artist-in-residence at the World Trade Center, New York (1998); P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City (1992–93); and École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts, Paris (1984). She has had major exhibitions at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2009); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC (2008); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2006); Magasin 3, Stockholm Konsthall, Sweden (2006); Massachusetts Institute of Technology, List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge (2005); and other institutions. Kimsooja has participated in international exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale (2001, 2005, 2007); Yokohama Triennial (2005); and Whitney Biennial (2002). Kimsooja lives and works in New York.
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source: artsynet

Kimsooja, born Kim Soo-Ja, adopted her nom de plume in 2003 when she picked a domain name for her first website; she was struck by the conceptual implications of combining her family name and given name, and memorialized the act as a conceptual piece titled A One-Word Name Is An Anarchist’s Name (2003). This musing on identity and its social implications is characteristic of Kimsooja’s performance works, in which she photographs or films herself in crowded city streets around the world with her back facing the camera. In these, she adopts different personae: the Needle Woman, the Beggar Woman, the Homeless Woman. Kimsooja is also known for her performances, sculptures, and installations using the bottari—the traditional Korean bed cover used to wrap and protect personal belongings—as a symbol of structure and connection.
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source: theartsglobetrotter

Sulla teoria dei colori, nei secoli, si sono espressi vari studiosi, e anche un poeta come Goethe. L’artista coreana Kimsooja, che da anni ha messo al centro della sua ricerca (anche spirituale) la luce, la Natura e lo spazio, ci presenta oggi alla galleria Tschudi di Zuoz (in Engadina) una concezione del colore che deriva dal rapporto tra Yin e Yang, oltre che dalla riflessione che ne fa il Confucianesimo e il Taoismo. Con la parola Obangsaek i coreani definiscono lo spettro di colori della natura dell’universo. E ad ogni colore corrispondono elementi naturali, profumi, desideri e caratteristiche umane.
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source: theartsglobetrotter

Since the late 70s, Kimsooja has transformed and redefined the notion of painting into object/sculptural pieces, performance, video, and site-specific sound and light installations. Her innovation has been to question the surface/tableau, self and the other; dealing with existential, natural, cultural and political borders from the concept of obangsaek and its dimensionality with relation to the artist’s body in the world; contextualizing her own concepts in parallel to Western art history.
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source: sttetticcablogspot

Kimsooja nació en Taegu, Corea en 1957, aunque en la actualidad vive y trabaja en Nueva York. Actualmente es una de las artistas coreanas más reconocidas en el panorama artístico internacional, y su obra ha sido ampliamente expuesta en Asia, América y Europa. En sus obras (instalaciones, fotografías, performances y vídeos), la artista aborda temáticas como la relación entre el yo y el otro, los roles de la mujer en nuestro mundo, etc., pero sin duda el nomadismo es punto clave de su arte. También se evidencia en toda su obra su intención de poner de manifiesto la importancia del ser humano en el mundo caótico en que vivimos, su soledad y fugacidad.

“Respirar: Una mujer espejo” es una instalación realizada en Madrid, en el Palacio de Cristal del parque de El Retiro, donde se aprovecha al máximo la estructura arquitectónica acristalada del lugar. La artista ha colocado un espejo en el suelo con el fin de que actúe como multiplicador y unificador del espacio. Al reflejar el abanico de colores provocado por la película de difracción translúcida colocada en la bóveda y la estructura, las imágenes proyectadas por el espejo forman figuras geométricas por toda la habitación y envuelven al visitante en una “burbuja” de color, constituida en un lugar único y seguro donde lo único que hay es su propio reflejo. Esta experiencia única se ve reforzada por el sonido de la respiración del espectador, lo que produce que la instalación se disfrute con otros sentidos además de la vista.
Como cualquier otra instalación, “Repirar: una mujer en el espejo” se ayuda del entorno en el que se encuentra y de objetos cotidianos, como son los espejos, para producir una experiencia.
En línea con las últimas manifestaciones del arte conceptual en general, el visitante no es aquí un mero espectador sino un participante, ya que es su presencia lo que produce los reflejos y la experiencia de estar en la “burbuja” de color frente a sí mismo.
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source: kunstmuseumli

Kimsooja, 1957 in Korea geboren und heute in New York lebend, ist in einer vom Konfuzianismus geprägten Kultur aufgewachsen. Ihr persönliches Lebensumfeld wurde jedoch vom Katholizismus dominiert. Zugleich führte der Umstand, dass die Familie bedingt durch den Beruf des Vaters beim Militär wiederholt umziehen musste, für Kimsooja zu der Erfahrung von Entwurzelung, wie sie auch die westliche Kultur im Verlaufe des 20. Jahrhunderts stark geprägt hat.

Vor diesem persönlichen Erfahrungshintergrund hat Kimsooja seit Mitte der 1980er Jahre ein überzeugendes Werk entwickelt. Die drei grossen Themen Stoffe, Bewegung und Abwesenheit prägen ihre vielseitige Arbeit, wobei sie vom menschlichen Körper als Ort der geistigen, spirituellen und sinnlichen Existenz ausgeht. Sie selbst versteht sich als symbolische Nadel: „Die Beziehung der Nadel zum Stoff ist wie die Beziehung meines Körpers zum Universum“ (Kimsooja). Die bedeutende Installation Mumbai: A Laundry Field aus dem Jahr 2007 bringt diese drei Themen miteinander in Beziehung.