Su ja Gim Boeken

artists' book appears flawless. limited edition of 500 copies.

The South Korean contemporary artist Kimsooja (*1957 in Taegu) has attracted a great deal of attention for her sculptures, performances, and interventions captured on video, as well as for her numerous solo exhibitions around the world. One of the fundamental concepts behind her work is the way in which she examines the everyday aspects of life and human exchange in her two- or three-dimensional works of art. A central element of her work has been the bottari, a traditional silk bedcover that also serves as a traveling bundle, protecting one’s worldly goods. In Korea, these are traditionally hand-sewn—women’s work that spans generations and unites individuals. Doing laundry or sewing, as well as a series of the artist’s symbolic performances—such as her role as “Needle Woman” or “Beggar Woman”—are at the core of Kimsooja’s work, in which she also reflects on the female human condition. This is the first monograph to present an overview of the artist’s most significant works across three decades.

This volume of texts is the first publication to feature all interviews with Kimsooja conducted between 1994 and 2017. Together with the extensive illustrated volume presenting an overview of her complete work since 1981 in chronological order it forms one of the most impressive and personal publications on her oeuvre. The interviews in this book are authentic testimonies of an artist, her background and unfaltering progress. Kimsooja’s work is characterised by essential experiences to which she exposes herself consciously and that she allows the audience to relive. Uncompromisingly, in her works she investigates elementary questions of human existence in their universal contexts. In this respect her work is pervaded by a profoundly human perspective: “In that sense, I’ve been working closely with non-violence and that is my position to the individual and society”. The interviews, conducted over the years in many different places around the world, afford a vivid insight into the conditions, background and findings of her meditative and empirical work.