Visiting Artists Program (VAP) Resource Guides

Currently based in Seoul and Paris, Kimsooja is an international conceptual artist whose practice explores the totality of life and art, transcending distinctions of medium and form through works of painting, sewing, installation, performance, video, light, and sound. In the 1980s, she began to experiment with alternative modes of expression while contemplating the two-dimensional structure of painting, leading to a series of sewing works that revealed a dualistic order of vertical and horizontal as the foundation of the world, thus expanding the object of her artistic inquiry from the material to the non-material. Kimsooja's resolute pursuit of the latter and adoption of “non-doing, non-making” as an aesthetic framework inform her long-standing engagement with various media and methodologies, driving her persistent questioning of art and humanity in conceptual, contemplative aesthetics and humanism.

Her work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions in major international museums as well as site-specific installations, for example, at the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris (2024); Museum für Asiatische Kunst and the Ethnologisches Museum, Humboldt Forum, Berlin (2023); Cisternerne, Frederiksberg Museums, Copenhagen (2023); Cathédrale Saint-Étienne de Metz, Metz, France (2022); Wanås Konst, Wanås, Sweden (2020); Traversées/Kimsooja in Poitiers, Poitiers, France (2019); Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts (2019); Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Chapel, West Bretton, United Kingdom (2019); Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz, Liechtenstein (2017); MMCA Hyundai Motor Series, Seoul (2016); Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain (2015); Centre Pompidou Metz, Metz, France (2015); Crystal Palace of Reina Sofía Museum, Madrid (2006); Museum of Contemporary Art Lyon, Lyon, France (2003); Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, Milan (2003); National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (2005); Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf (2004); Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2002); Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, Switzerland (2001); and MoMA PS1, New York (2001). She has been part of numerous biennials and triennials such as BIENALSUR (2021, 2023), documenta 14 (2017), Venice Biennale (2013, 2007, 2005, 2001, 1999), Gwangju Biennale (2012, 2000, 1995), Lyon Biennale (2000), São Paulo Biennale (1998), Istanbul Biennale (1997), and Manifesta 1 (1996).

image credit: Kimsooja, 2016. Courtesy of EMST, Athens, Greece and Kimsooja Studio. Photo by Giannis Vastardis.

Jaeho Chong is a principal at Gongwon Co., a Seoul-based architectural design consultancy operating at the intersection of art and architecture. The studio works with leading institutions and individuals from around the globe to realize cultural projects that help expand the reach of human experience. Having a specialty in cross-disciplinary approaches that integrate contemporary art and architecture through collaborative research, Chong has led the production of many city-level initiatives: biennials, permanent public art commissions, and architectural interventions in historic monuments and urban infrastructures.

He has worked with government organizations, transport agencies, cultural institutions, and companies across a wide spectrum in varying capacities, including the cities of Metz, Poitiers, and Nara; the Royal Commission for AlUla; Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York; RATP in Paris; Art Gallery of New South Wales; Centre Pompidou-Metz; Guggenheim Bilbao Museum; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Korea; Leeum Samsung Museum of Art; the Korean Pavilion at Venice Biennial; Hyundai Motor Company; Fondation d’entreprise Hermès; Asia Society; Cornell University; Art Basel; and Frieze, among others. While engaging art projects, Chong’s architectural works include a 4,200 square meter commercial office tower in downtown Seoul, both as the lead design architect and a real-estate developer; a 155,000 square meter hot spring resort masterplan on Jeju Island; and a series of cultural programming and architectural interventions in the southern islands of the Korean peninsula.

Chong holds a master of architecture from Yale University and a bachelor of architecture from The Cooper Union. Prior to founding his firm, he taught at Hong Kong University and practiced at a number of internationally recognized architecture firms in New York.

Image Credit: Jaeho Chong

Artists Websites
Kimsooja’s website
GONGWON CO.

Gallery Representation
AxelVervoodt Gallery
Kewenig Gallery
Galleria Raffaella Cortese
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
Galerie Tschudi

Kimsooja transforms Copenhagen’s underground Cisternerne into a laboratory of light
Alice Godwin | Wallpaper* | March 23, 2023

Kimsooja: Topography of Body
Axel Vervoordt Gallery | Ocula | March 18, 2023

To Breathe
Kat Barandy | Designboom | March 13, 2023

KIMSOOJA: Breathing Life into Oneself
Subin Anderson | Plus Magazine | November 2022

Artist Kimsooja connects through the looking glass
Ilana Jacob | #legend | October 21, 2021

Seeds of Hope: Kimsooja on Nature, Nurture and Musings on Life
Christina Ko | CoBo | August 23, 2021

Beach-y Keen
Matt Hickman | The Architect’s Newspaper | February 17, 2021

Artist Kimsooja Plants the Seed of an Idea
Mark Rappolt | ArtReview | August 5, 2020

Biennial’s Art and Science Collaborations Earn Acclaim
Daniel Aloi | Cornell Chronicle | February 12, 2015

Collaboration on Campus—Nanotechnology & Contemporary Art
Art21 | November 10, 2015 | Please note this podcast does not provide transcripts

Kimsooja Videos on Art21 [Collection]

Making Worlds
Making Worlds (Ongoing) presents Kimsooja’s monumental work Archive of Mind, forming the centerpiece of Making Worlds, featured in the large column-free gallery on lower level 1 of the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ new North Building.

Kimsooja – (Un)Folding Bottari
Humboldt Forum presents (Un)Folding Bottari (October 25, 2023  – February 19, 2024). At the invitation of the Museum für Asiatische Kunst, the artist Kimsooja together with guest curator Keumhwa Kim has developed a sequence of (non-)interventions in the permanent exhibitions.

Visiting Artists Program Lecture Recordings from the Archive
SAIC Visiting Artists Program video and audio lecture recordings (1977–present.) Available with SAIC login credentials.

SAIC Digital Collections: Visiting Artists Program
SAIC Visiting Artists Program publicity archive and audio recordings (1977–98).